We’re investing in Streem as a play on augmented reality transforming human interaction. Streem focuses on the future of collaboration, diagnosis, and data capture between consumers, professionals, and manufacturers. Streem offers a subscription-based smartphone app that allows consumers and pros to communicate in AR via the phone’s camera.
In our view, Streem has the potential to redefine a wide range of everyday, inefficient activities including quotes from pros and customer support.
Experts On Demand
With Streem, a painter can remotely visit a potential customer, allowing the pro to quickly bid a project and capture information relevant to the project. The pro wins for two reasons: 1. Pros no longer have to visit the home in person; 2. Pros can capture and annotate the visit, gaining a more complete picture of the scope of the project. The consumer wins because they can easily and promptly get multiple bids, saving time and money.
Streem is also great for customer support. For example, a new car buyer may find it difficult to operate the entertainment system or fold down the third row of seating. Streem allows a direct, cost-effective connection between a consumer and a manufacturer. Manufacturers win because the interaction builds brand loyalty; consumers win because they get thorough and timely assistance.
The Broader AR Opportunity
We think of AR as the future of human interaction, compared to the smartphone, which is the center of our interactions today. We define augmented reality as the layering of artificial sensory elements onto the real world. While the smartphone will be the hardware that enables basic augmented reality applications over the next few years, AR will eventually be delivered by wearables that replace the screen as we know it.
The market opportunity for AR applications is open-ended. Apple’s App Store has returned $100B to developers over the past 10 years, of which $30B has been paid out in the last 12 months. We believe AR will enable the second great gold rush in mobile computing, delivered through Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store.
We’re thrilled to join Streem on its mission to make the world’s experts more accessible — a practical and needed application of augmented reality.
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