Sandbox VR, which offers VR experiences at seven public locations like malls in US, Canada, and Asia, raises $68M Series A to expand to new locations
- Sandbox VR makes virtual reality experiences which combine off-the-shelf hardware, green screens, and custom content.
Context & Ripple Effects
Sandbox VR's $68M Series A lands mid-way through a funding wave for out-of-home VR: NextVR raised an $80M Series B in 2016, and Dreamscape Immersive brought its Series B to $30M with Nickelodeon investing IP rights in 2017. What distinguishes Sandbox VR is its build approach — off-the-shelf hardware, green screens, and custom content rather than bespoke rigs — deployed at seven mall locations across the US, Canada, and Asia.
The raise is also the first chapter of a longer arc: two years later the company would return with a $37M Series B led by a16z at a dozen locations, suggesting this round bought the footprint expansion it was raised for.
First-order effects
- Sandbox VR can now sign leases for additional public locations beyond its current seven, putting its green-screen-plus-consumer-hardware format directly against Dreamscape Immersive's premium, IP-backed venues for the same mall anchors.
- Mall landlords gain a new category of tenant competing for their high-traffic space, while Sandbox VR's spend flows toward off-the-shelf VR hardware and custom content production.
Second-order effects
- Consumer VR hardware makers get a commercial channel they don't control: every new Sandbox VR venue is a bulk buyer of headsets and sensors built for homes, not arcades.
- IP holders watch Nickelodeon's Dreamscape deal and face pressure to license characters and worlds to location-based VR operators, since exclusive content is becoming the differentiator between otherwise similar venues.
Third-order effects
- If the funding cadence holds — Sandbox VR's own later Series B suggests it did — location-based VR consolidates around operators who pair cheap commodity hardware with licensed IP and retail footprints, squeezing out single-venue independents.
- The category's economics push VR toward an out-of-home model where consumers experience premium content at malls rather than buying it for living rooms, reshaping how content studios monetize VR productions.
The trend: Venture capital is treating location-based VR as a retail-anchored entertainment category, with successive rounds rewarding operators who scale physical footprints on commodity hardware.