{"id":39854,"date":"2023-10-20T15:04:50","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/this-melbourne-phd-archaeologist-secured-900000-for-a-vr-startup-while-still-waiting-for-their-thesis-results-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:04:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:04:50","slug":"this-melbourne-phd-archaeologist-secured-900000-for-a-vr-startup-while-still-waiting-for-their-thesis-results-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/this-melbourne-phd-archaeologist-secured-900000-for-a-vr-startup-while-still-waiting-for-their-thesis-results-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"This Melbourne PhD archaeologist secured $900,000 for a VR startup while still waiting for their thesis results – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lithodomos<\/div>\n

A Melbourne-based PhD archaeologist who is waiting for the results on his thesis has secured $900,000 in seed funding from private investors to build a virtual reality startup that will bring ancient cities back to life.<\/p>\n

Simon Young founded Lithodomos VR in 2016 and has already sparked the interest of universities, tour companies, cultural heritage centres and even gaming arcades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are PhD archaeologists who team up with 3D modellers and VR experts to create archeologically accurate reconstructions of the ancient worlds,\u201d Young tells StartupSmart.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to get an idea of what ancient cities looked like at ground level for someone that\u2019s standing there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Oculus rift came out three years ago, I thought what would happen if I took the 3D models I was creating for my PhD and imported it into a game engine and put them into a VR headset.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lithodomos<\/p>\n

After sharing the results with colleagues and friends, excitement began to bubble and Young soon captured the attention of Tony Simmons, the founder and chief executive of startup incubator Mktplace Ventures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hairs on his arm [stood] up and he [had] goose pimples. He saw that this has multiple distribution channel opportunities,\u201d says Young.<\/p>\n

Under the mentorship of Simmons and through participation in his incubator, Young started developing a business foundation for his startup.<\/p>\n

The fundraising process<\/h3>\n

While the lead up to the first investor meeting was \u201cinsane\u201d, Young says the startup was able to secure funding from the initial pitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say it\u2019s hard,\u201d says Young.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first meeting we\u2019ve had and it just happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Young\u2019s success with investors was backed by an incredible amount of research, analysis and development that stems back to his PhD studies.<\/p>\n

By the time his team met with investors, Young had a 100-page business plan backed by financial projections; detailed market research based on interviews with people in their target market such as tourism companies; a real understanding of what these customers want; and a memorandum of understanding for potential investors.<\/p>\n

This preparation meant Young was well equipped to address all sorts of questions that ranged from whether people would look silly in VR headsets, to how the business would manage a point of sale system.<\/p>\n

Young adds that Simmons\u2019 support was critical in all of this given his experience in founding and publicly listing a company.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a PhD student, I had not idea about all that stuff,\u201d Young says.<\/p>\n

During investor meetings, Young also realised that building relationships and rapport with potential backers was far more important than fancy presentation slides.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople didn\u2019t focus on the presentation so much. We spent so many hours on the slides [but the reality is] people just want to talk to you and hear the story from the horse\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite often we\u2019d get through one or two slides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking VR from novelty to real world application<\/h3>\n

Lithodomos VR has multiple revenue models, says Young, including subscriptions for universities and educational institutions to access gated content for \u201ckitchen services\u201d and licensing for tour companies to hire out headsets\u00a0with Lithomodos VR tour guides instead of traditional audio guides.<\/p>\n

\"Lithodomos<\/p>\n

The startup has just landed a project with the University of C\u00f3rdoba in the south of Spain and will be developing a 3D reconstruction of ancient Roman cities for museum visitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cTourists by the millions turn up [at ancient Roman sites] but they can\u2019t understand what they\u2019re looking at … [they] want to understand what they\u2019re looking at, but they only see a pile of rubble,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Lithodomos VR is also available as a basic mobile phone app that can be experienced with a Google cardboard VR set.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be the cheapest option,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s talking about VR but quite often the applications are novelty \u2026 this is a real practical application that can take you somewhere you can\u2019t go now, and can help you understand what you\u2019re looking at on an ancient site.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and iTunes<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Melbourne-based PhD archaeologist who is waiting for the results on his thesis has secured $900,000 in seed funding from<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39854"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}