{"id":341998,"date":"2017-05-26T08:39:36","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T00:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1495489"},"modified":"2017-05-26T08:39:36","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T00:39:36","slug":"with-new-realities-to-build-unity-positioned-to-become-tech-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/with-new-realities-to-build-unity-positioned-to-become-tech-giant\/","title":{"rendered":"With new realities to build, Unity positioned to become tech giant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Playing god has never been a particularly strange ambition for Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

Even so, there are few verticals\u00a0filled with more utopian dreams\u00a0than the studios and startups building virtual and augmented reality experiences. While some are looking to craft 3D experiences that integrate into\u00a0the real world, others are aiming\u00a0to create\u00a0massive worlds\u00a0we can escape to. The one thing many of them have in common, however, is that they are built on a game engine\u00a0from a company called\u00a0Unity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unity Technologies, which builds tools for developers crafting 3D content across\u00a0multiple platforms, has been having a pretty solid year.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the company announced that it has\u00a0closed a massive\u00a0$400 million investment<\/a>\u00a0from Silver Lake Partners\u00a0that, according to a report in the WSJ, valued the company at $2.8 billion. This raise comes hot on the heels of a $181 million investment<\/a>\u00a0just 10 months prior.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnity could be one of the most important technology companies in the next decade,\u201d said Barry Schuler, a partner at DFJ Growth, which led Unity\u2019s last round.<\/p>\n

Schuler\u2019s\u00a0biases should be apparent, but his belief \u2014 that if virtual and augmented reality manage to take off, then Unity will be\u00a0poised for greatness \u2014 is one shared by many investors and industry insiders\u00a0I\u2019ve chatted with.<\/p>\n

Opportunity<\/h2>\n

The world Unity is ripe for is one based on spatial computing<\/em>, a term for technologies that enable our interactions with digital objects to grow much more in line\u00a0with how we interact with real-world things.<\/p>\n

\"Microsoft<\/p>\n

Rendering of a user viewing 3D objects with Microsoft HoloLens<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Shopping for clothes online might transform from scrolling on a handheld device to peering\u00a0at a real-world mirror and seeing what a hat or shirt would look like mapped in 3D on your head. It\u2019s a world that\u2019s limitless in its potential, though it will likely rely on some groundbreaking hardware to enable it as well as powerful software suites known as game engines.<\/p>\n

Game engines may have initially been built for video game titles, but\u00a0the needs of several other major\u00a0industries are beginning to line up and shape the ambitions of the companies like Unity that create them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Unity CEO John Riccitiello<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe call it a game engine, but really it\u2019s\u00a0an animation\/interactive\/lighting\/physics\/presence engine,\u201d Unity CEO John Riccitiello told TechCrunch. \u201cAnd it happens to also be what Audi needs. And it happens to be what the guys at the Large\u00a0Hadron Collider also need.\u201d<\/p>\n