Themes

This week we attended Automate, a robotics trade show in Chicago focused on manufacturing and fulfillment. As we explored the show floor, we saw a number of robots able to work next to humans for an affordable cost of $30-$40k each. Most vendors claimed less…

The Loup Ventures NCAA bracket contest isn’t as hotly contested as we thought it would be. We entered Bing’s AI bracket into our pool, and it’s just as busted as the others. In fact, Bing’s bracket will finish at the…

Google’s smartphone-powered VR platform, Daydream, represents the company’s most significant push to date in its effort to accelerate the adoption of VR. We’ve spent the last few weeks testing the platform with a Pixel phone and a Daydream View headset. Bottom line: Daydream isn’t there…

Apple Services Through 2022. We have written about the need for Apple to reinvent itself in the next decade through services and AR. The Services reinvention is already underway, accounting for 11.6% of revenue in 2016, and closer to 18%…

Over the next 5-10 years, we believe augmented reality will emerge as the next dominant computing paradigm and that Google and Apple will provide the operating systems that power AR computing. The OS will need to incorporate core technologies including artificial intelligence,…

At this point, it might not even be that crazy to say it, but we think AirPods are going to be a bigger product for Apple than the Watch. After using AirPods for the past month, the Loup Ventures team…

The trend in computing towards more natural user interfaces is unmistakable. Graphical user interfaces have long been dominant, but machines driven by more intuitive inputs, like touch and voice, are now mainstream. Today, audio, motion, and even our thoughts, are the basis for the…

Apple’s AirPods are a step towards the future of computing. Starting with the move from the keyboard and mouse to the touchscreen, computing continues to move towards more intuitive user interfaces. Audio and motion capture are the basis for most innovative computer hardware today,…

Today, we’re excited to announce a new investment in Realvision. We see great opportunity in the crossover between AI and VR. The company’s machine learning and computer vision platform creates immersive 3D, VR-ready models for real estate listings. Not only does the platform…

Last week, we surveyed 502 people in the US regarding their interest in purchasing the iPhone X, expected to launch this fall. Among the 234 iPhone owners we surveyed, 23% intend to upgrade to iPhone X, which compares to 15% that…

We recently hosted a panel of 8 college students from the University of Minnesota. The goal was to better understand how millennials think about social media, communications, video, VR, AR, the selfie generation, the future of work, and privacy. Here’s a…

As we watched the run up in SNAP shares since its IPO last week, we wondered how much of the move was based on potential revenue growth of more than 2x in 2017 or investors buying in to Snap’s long…