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holoride

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holoride
Information
Industry In-car entertainment, extended reality
Founded End of 2018, Munich, Germany
Founder Nils Wollny, Marcus Kühne, Daniel Profendiner, Audi Electronics Venture GmbH
Headquarters Singapore (Holoride Technologies Group Pte. Ltd.); Munich (holoride technologies Europe GmbH)
Notable Personnel Nils Wollny (co-founder and CEO)
Products holoride in-car VR platform, holoride retrofit, Spatial Experience SDK
Website https://www.holoride.com


holoride is a company that develops entertainment for car passengers in which virtual reality and other extended reality content is synchronized with the real movement of the vehicle. It was founded at the end of 2018 in Munich, Germany, as a spin-off from Audi by three former Audi employees, Nils Wollny, Marcus Kühne and Daniel Profendiner, with Audi as a minority shareholder.[1][2] The company calls its approach "Elastic Content": games and experiences that adapt to the vehicle's acceleration, steering and route, which holoride says also reduces the chance of motion sickness.[3][4]

holoride was shown publicly at CES 2019 with a Disney-made Marvel demo in an Audi, launched a consumer product built around the HTC Vive Flow headset in selected Audi models in Germany in November 2022, and followed it in January 2023 with a retrofit device for any car.[3][5] After a funding round collapsed, holoride GmbH entered insolvency proceedings in 2024. The company's intellectual property was moved to a new Singapore-based group, which licenses the technology to business customers. Valeo's in-car racing game, which Automotive World reports was developed with holoride, reached production in the Renault Filante in 2026.[6][7][8]

Reviewed 6 October 2026. Checked founding, CES 2019, Porsche and Universal demos, advisory board, awards, Series A, RIDE token, Audi and retrofit launches, 2024 insolvency, Singapore restructuring and 2026 Valeo partnership against the cited holoride, court-report, press and Valeo sources. About review dates.

History

Founding at Audi

All three founders worked at Audi before starting the company. According to a 2020 interview with the founders, Kühne and Profendiner were put in touch by Audi's patent department after each had independently filed an almost identical patent application for the idea behind holoride. After presenting the concept to Audi and Volkswagen management, they set the project up as a separate company so that it could serve any car manufacturer rather than Audi alone. Wollny became CEO, Profendiner CTO and Kühne CXO.[1] Audi held a minority stake from the start; holoride's own announcements name Audi as a co-founder and identify the shareholder as Audi Electronics Venture GmbH.[2][9]

CES 2019 and early demonstrations

Audi presented holoride at CES 2019 in Las Vegas. The demo, Marvel's Avengers: Rocket's Rescue Run, was developed by Disney Games and Interactive Experiences: a passenger in the back seat of an Audi wore a VR headset and rode through an asteroid field with the Guardians of the Galaxy character Rocket, and the virtual ship turned and accelerated as the car did. Audi said that matching the visual experience to the vehicle's actual movement gave "a significantly reduced chance of motion sickness", and holoride said at the time that it aimed to reach the market within three years.[4] holoride later stated that the CES appearance had been called "Best of CES" four times, by outlets including CNET, Tom's Guide and SlashGear.[10]

In July 2019 Porsche showed a prototype of holoride in a rear-seat demonstration developed through the Startup Autobahn innovation platform; Wollny said the collaboration had let the team build the prototype in 100 days, and a Porsche manager cited holoride's manufacturer-independent approach.[11] From 14 October to 9 November 2019, holoride, Universal Pictures and Ford ran Universal Monsters Presents: Bride of Frankenstein holoride, a free in-car VR ride for the public at Universal CityWalk in Hollywood that used 2020 Ford Explorer vehicles and fed the car's speed and steering data into the experience.[12] In November 2019 holoride announced that TIME had included it in its list of the 100 Best Inventions of 2019.[2]

In April 2020 the company named an advisory board that included the film directors Anthony and Joseph Russo, Superconductor founder Todd Makurath, Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, Metaio founder Thomas Alt, HyperloopTT founder Dirk Ahlborn, Kathleen Cohen and Anorak Ventures founder Greg Castle.[13]

Funding, awards and the RIDE token

In April 2021 holoride won the "Best Innovation and Technology" category (Beste Innovation und Technologie) of the German Computer Game Awards, which carried 35,000 euros in prize money.[14] On 22 April 2021 it announced the first closing of its Series A round at 10 million euros, at a valuation of 30 million euros. Terranet AB, a Swedish developer of advanced driver-assistance software, led the round, with Multi-Dimensional Connectivity (MDC) Limited, Schell Games, existing shareholder Audi and a group of Chinese financial and automotive technology investors also taking part.[15][16] Vendetta Capital led a further, undisclosed investment in December 2021.[17]

On 4 November 2021 holoride announced RIDE, a utility token on the Elrond blockchain meant to pay content creators and reward passengers within an NFT-based content ecosystem. RIDE was the first project on the Maiar Launchpad, where its public sale took place on 26 November 2021.[18]

Consumer launch

On 25 February 2022, ahead of Mobile World Congress, holoride and HTC announced that the HTC Vive Flow would be the first "holoride-ready" VR headset for series integration in cars.[19] In March 2022 Engadget reported that holoride would come to select Audi models with the MIB 3 infotainment system in June 2022, starting in Germany, the UK and the US.[20] The launch slipped: holoride announced on 2 November 2022 that its platform would go on sale in Germany in mid-November 2022 for selected Audi models, with the US planned for early 2023.[3]

At CES 2023 the company introduced the holoride retrofit, a small windshield-mounted unit that brings the system to vehicles of any make, model or year. Sales began on 4 January 2023 in the United States and Germany.[5][21]

Insolvency

On 22 April 2024 Terranet, which held about 10 percent of holoride GmbH, said it did not intend to invest further. In the same announcement it reported that holoride's talks with new financiers had dragged on, its long-term liquidity was not secured, and it had begun a preliminary insolvency procedure under German law to find new owners or investors.[22] The Munich local court (Amtsgericht München) ordered preliminary insolvency administration on 24 April 2024.[6]

Wollny made the filing public on LinkedIn in May 2024. He wrote that an investment round that had appeared secure, with contracts finalized and a notary appointment scheduled, fell through when the limited partners' funds did not arrive in time.[17][23] He told UploadVR that some employees had been laid off in February 2024 under a new strategic direction, and that the company was working with the provisional insolvency administrator to find a solution by the end of June.[24] The same court opened formal insolvency proceedings on 1 July 2024 on the grounds of inability to pay and overindebtedness, with the lawyer Hubert Ampferl as insolvency administrator. The next day the responsible law firm notified the court of Masseunzulänglichkeit (insufficiency of the estate): the remaining assets would cover the costs of the proceedings but not the estate's other liabilities (Masseverbindlichkeiten).[6]

Restructuring in Singapore

In September 2024 holoride announced that all intellectual property of the former holoride GmbH had been transferred to the newly founded Holoride Technologies Group Pte. Ltd., headquartered in Singapore, and that the core team had moved to the subsidiary holoride technologies Europe GmbH in Munich. Wollny stayed on as group CEO. The announcement named Jing Jing Xu, a partner at Fuel Ventures, and Tony Chen, a co-founder of the publicly listed companies Farasis and Ecarx, as shareholders. It also changed the business model: holoride would license its technology to industrial customers in the mobility, tech, entertainment and tourism sectors, use the Singapore base for access to Asian markets, and from early 2025 extend its software from VR headsets to smartphones, tablets, and augmented and mixed reality glasses.[7] On 18 December 2024 holoride announced an investment from Fuel Ventures Asia, the Asian arm of the UK-based venture capital firm Fuel Ventures, to support its B2B model, multi-device strategy and Asian expansion; the amount was not disclosed.[25][26]

Products

Product Introduced Description
holoride for Audi November 2022 (Germany) Platform for Audi A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, Q5, Q7, Q8, e-tron, e-tron Sportback and e-tron GT models with the MIB 3 infotainment system (model year 2023 software cluster) and the "Audi connect Navigation & Infotainment" option. The Pioneers' Pack cost 699 euros and contained an HTC Vive Flow, an 8BitDo Pro 2 gamepad, a safety strap and a one-year subscription; afterwards the subscription cost 19.99 euros per month, or 14.99 euros per month when paid yearly.[3]
holoride retrofit January 2023 (US and Germany) Unit about the size of a smart speaker, weighing under half a pound, mounted on the windshield with a suction cup. It connects to up to two headsets over Bluetooth and has a built-in battery rated for up to 14 hours. Prices were US$199 for the device alone and US$799 for a pack with the Vive Flow, controller, safety strap and one-year subscription.[5][21]
RIDE token November 2021 Utility token on the Elrond blockchain for the holoride content ecosystem.[18]
Spatial Experience SDK and Spatial Perception Engine 2026 (named in Valeo partnership) The Spatial Perception Engine interprets real-time vehicle motion and environmental data; the SDK lets developers and car makers build motion- and location-aware games.[27]

XR work

Elastic Content

holoride's system feeds real-time vehicle data, such as acceleration and steering, traffic information and the travel route, into the content, so that what the passenger sees matches what they feel.[19][2] In the CES 2019 demo, a tight corner in the real car made the player's ship curve around an opposing spaceship.[4] holoride's launch announcement calls this approach "Elastic Content" and states that its use of steering, braking and acceleration data substantially reduces motion sickness.[3] The company's early plans also included working traffic events into gameplay, such as a quiz during a stop at a red light.[4] In the Audi version the platform required the car's MIB 3 infotainment system, while the retrofit unit connected to the headset over Bluetooth so that the software could use the vehicle's movement and location data.[3][21]

Content

The Audi launch title was Cloudbreakers: Leaving Haven, developed by Schell Games and produced with the creative agency Superconductor.[3] By the retrofit launch the library also included Einstein Brain Trainer, Pixel Ripped 1995: On the Road (from ARVORE), a custom web browser and an Android screen-mirroring feature.[21]

Valeo partnership

Valeo first showed its Valeo Racer concept at SXSW in 2024. In February 2026 Valeo announced that the production version, the extended reality racing game R:Racing, was entering series production in Renault Korea's new Filante; Valeo describes it as using the car's existing sensors, cameras, computing hardware and software.[28] According to Automotive World, the Racer system was developed with holoride and synchronizes the game's visuals with the car's movement to address motion sickness.[8] On 24 April 2026, at Auto China 2026 in Beijing, Valeo and holoride announced an expanded partnership to scale a portfolio of in-car XR games, combining Valeo's advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) sensor suite with holoride's "Spatial Intelligence" technology; the two companies had first unveiled the collaboration at CES 2026.[27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Simon Tischer (2020-03-30). "holoride: The car ride as a virtual reality game". Munich Startup. https://www.munich-startup.de/en/58920/holoride-the-car-ride-as-a-virtual-reality-game/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "holoride named one of TIME's 100 Best Inventions of 2019". PRWeb. holoride. 2019-11-26. https://www.prweb.com/releases/holoride_named_one_of_times_100_best_inventions_of_2019/prweb16750892.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 "Launching our in-car entertainment platform for select Audi models". holoride. 2022-11-02. https://www.holoride.com/en/newsroom/market-launch. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Scott Hayden (2019-01-09). "CES 2019: Audi-founded Startup to Bring VR to Passengers Looking for Relief from Boredom & Motion Sickness". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/ces-2019-audi-virtual-reality-experience-platform/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Igor Bonifacic (2023-01-04). "Holoride's Retrofit kit puts in-car VR technology in any backseat". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/holorides-retrofit-system-lets-you-add-its-in-car-vr-technology-to-any-vehicle-175749616.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Holoride: Insolvenzverfahren beim VR-Pionier eröffnet (Update)". GamesWirtschaft. 2024-07-08. https://www.gameswirtschaft.de/wirtschaft/holoride-vr-audi-insolvenzverwaltung-080724/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "holoride reloaded: Infotainment pioneer repositions itself". holoride. 2024-09-19. https://www.holoride.com/en/newsroom/holoride-reloaded. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Valeo to showcase in-cabin tech at SXSW 2026". Automotive World. 2026-03-06. https://www.automotiveworld.com/news/valeo-to-showcase-in-cabin-tech-at-sxsw-2026/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  9. ↑ Dan Taylor (2021-04-22). "Munich-based in-car VR company holoride closes first round of Series A funding at 10 million euros, achieves 30 million euros valuation". Tech.eu. https://tech.eu/2021/04/22/munich-based-in-car-vr-company-holoride-closes-first-round-of-series-a-funding-at-e10-million-achieves-e30-million-valuation/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  10. ↑ "First steps on a global stage". holoride. 2019-01-15. https://www.holoride.com/en/newsroom/first-steps-on-a-global-stage. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  11. ↑ "Porsche presents VR entertainment for the back seat with "holoride"". Porsche Newsroom. Porsche AG. 2019-07-16. https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2019/digital/porsche-vr-entertainment-holoride-startup-autobahn-expo-day-18145.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  12. ↑ Darrell Etherington (2019-10-10). "Holoride makes its in-car VR available to the public for the first time". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/10/holoride-makes-its-in-car-vr-available-to-the-public-for-the-first-time/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  13. ↑ "holoride Announces the Formation of its Advisory Board". PR Newswire. holoride. 2020-04-16. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/holoride-announces-the-formation-of-its-advisory-board-301039718.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  14. ↑ "Deutscher Computerspielpreis 2021: Alle Gewinner im Live-Ticker (Update)". GamesWirtschaft. 2021-04-13. https://www.gameswirtschaft.de/events/computerspielpreis-2021-gewinner-live-ticker-livestream/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  15. ↑ "holoride completes Series A funding round". holoride. 2021-04-22. https://www.holoride.com/en/newsroom/holoride-completes-series-a-funding-round. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  16. ↑ Scott Hayden (2021-05-03). "Holoride Secures $12M Funding to Create Immersive in-car VR Experiences". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/holoride-12-million-series-a-investment/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Scott Hayden (2024-05-13). "Audi Co-founded VR Entertainment Startup Holoride Files for Bankruptcy". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/audi-holoride-bankruptcy-vr-entertainment/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "holoride releases its own cryptocurrency". holoride. 2021-11-04. https://www.holoride.com/en/newsroom/holoride-releases-cryptocurrency. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "holoride and HTC debut ride-ready glasses for in-car entertainment". holoride. 2022-02-25. https://www.holoride.com/en/newsroom/holoride-and-HTC-partnership. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  20. ↑ Igor Bonifacic (2022-03-13). "Holoride's in-car VR tech arrives in Audi vehicles this summer". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/audi-holoride-summer-2022-154356466.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 Kirsten Korosec (2023-01-04). "Holoride launches new device to bring VR entertainment to any vehicle". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/04/holoride-launches-device-to-bring-vr-into-any-vehicle/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  22. ↑ "Terranet updates the market on its shareholding in holoride". Inderes. Terranet AB. 2024-04-22. https://www.inderes.dk/en/releases/terranet-updates-the-market-on-its-shareholding-in-holoride. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  23. ↑ Tomislav Bezmalinovic (2024-05-10). "In-car VR startup Holoride files for insolvency". MIXED. https://mixed-news.com/en/holoride-insolvency/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  24. ↑ Ian Hamilton (2024-05-10). "Holoride Insolvent As Investment Falls Through: 'Pioneering Is Painful'". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/holoride-insolvent/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  25. ↑ "Fuel Ventures Asia backs holoride's new strategic direction". holoride. 2024-12-18. https://www.holoride.com/en/newsroom/holoride-fuel-ventures-asia. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  26. ↑ Tomislav Bezmalinovic (2024-12-18). "Holoride finds new investor for expansion in Asia". MIXED. https://mixed-news.com/en/holoride-fuel-ventures-asia/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "Valeo and holoride Expand Partnership to Scale Extended Reality Gaming in Vehicles". Valeo. 2026-04-24. https://www.valeo.com/en/valeo-and-holoride-expand-partnership-to-scale-extended-reality-gaming-in-vehicles/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  28. ↑ "Valeo XR Gaming Enters Series Production with Renault Korea's New Filante". Valeo. 2026-02-11. https://www.valeo.com/en/valeo-xr-gaming-enters-series-production-with-renault-koreas-new-filante/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
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