SVVR
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| SVVR | |
|---|---|
| |
| Information | |
| Industry | Virtual Reality |
| Founded | May 2013 |
| Founder | Karl Krantz |
| Headquarters | Mountain View, California, U.S. |
| Notable Personnel | Nana Usui (co-founder) |
| Products | SVVR 2015, SVVR 2016 |
| Website | http://svvr.com/ |
SVVR or Silicon Valley Virtual Reality is a community-focused organization dedicated to advancing the virtual reality ecosystem. SVVR's events allow developers, content creators, entrepreneurs and investors interested or working in the virtual reality industry to share, teach, improve and promote the VR ecosystem.
SVVR has organized monthly meetups since May 2013.[1] It organized annual conferences and expos from 2014 to 2017.[2][3]
The meetup was started by Karl Krantz, a telepresence professional who was excited about the Oculus Rift, and it drew early speakers and guests from Oculus VR, Sixense and other companies of the period.[4] In 2018 Krantz described it as "the world's largest, longest-running VR meetup community."[2] Its conference, first held in May 2014, grew from about 400 attendees and 35 companies in its first year to about 1,400 attendees and 100 companies in its second.[5]
History
Founding and early meetups
The first Silicon Valley Virtual Reality meetup took place on 16 May 2013, chaired by Karl Krantz.[1] Road to VR reported that the inaugural gathering was held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.[6] Krantz and Cymatic Bruce gave talks, and the attendees included Nate Mitchell, then VP of Product at Oculus VR, along with representatives from Sixense and Matterport. The meetup's stated areas of interest included stereoscopic displays, gestural interfaces, haptics, virtual worlds, 3D modeling and game development tools, and the talks ranged from the history of VR to the need for development techniques to evolve with the technology. A second meetup was scheduled for 27 June 2013 with the Project Holodeck team and Tactical Haptics.[1] In a 2018 interview, Krantz said the meetup had been started by himself and Bruce Wooden (Cymatic Bruce), and that it was the first VR meetup in the United States, or at least the first since the 1990s.[2]
Krantz told Road to VR in September 2013 that he had been developing telepresence systems for about 15 years, and that he founded the group because he was excited about the Rift and "wanted to meet others who were just as excited about it." He cited Jaron Lanier's VR work of the late 1980s as an early influence. By then the meetup had reached its fourth edition and had found a home at Hacker Dojo, a co-working space in Mountain View. The size of the building limited events to just under 100 people, and every event so far had had a waiting list. Speakers by then included Second Life creator Philip Rosedale.[4] In July 2014 Krantz told the Voices of VR podcast that the monthly meetup was still limited to 100 people by fire code and was filling up every month.[7]
Conference years (2014-2017)
SVVR announced its first Conference & Expo in March 2014, planned for 19-20 May 2014 at the Computer History Museum with room for 400 VR developers and entrepreneurs and up to 15 exhibitor booths. The museum holds Ivan Sutherland's Sword of Damocles, the first stereoscopic head-mounted display.[6] Confirmed speakers and panelists included Palmer Luckey of Oculus, Philip Rosedale of High Fidelity, Sixense CEO Amir Rubin, Richard Marks of Sony Computer Entertainment America R&D, Virtuix CEO Jan Goetgeluk, Jaunt VR founder Jens Christensen and Walter Greenleaf of Stanford University.[8]
In December 2014 SVVR held a holiday event at the Computer History Museum. Oculus brought its Crescent Bay prototype, Sixense showed a lightsaber demo on the Samsung Gear VR, and Amir Rubin presented Krantz with the first STEM system. Other exhibitors included Samsung, CastAR, zSpace, AltspaceVR and Jaunt.[9]
The second conference moved to the San Jose Convention Center in May 2015. Hypergrid Business named Krantz and Nana Usui as its organizers.[10] In a March 2016 Voices of VR episode, host Kent Bye described the first SVVR conference as "the first consumer VR conference," and Krantz said the target for the third year was 200 companies and 3,000 people.[5] The fourth event, SVVR 2017, ran on 29-31 March 2017 at the San Jose Convention Center with more than 100 exhibitors from North America, Europe and Asia. It had dedicated tracks for medical VR, development and content creation, education, WebVR, and location-based VR and Vsports, as well as regional pavilions from Japan, Korea, China and Europe.[3][11] Keynote speakers were Nonny de la Peña of Emblematic Group, Tony Parisi of Unity, Voices of VR host Kent Bye and Rikard Steiber, SVP of virtual reality at HTC. At the event SVVR announced an expansion into Asia with SVVR Japan and SVVR Korea. The release's boilerplate identified Karl Krantz and Nana Usui as SVVR's founders.[3]
Public benefit corporation and new initiatives (2018)
On its fifth anniversary, 16 May 2018, SVVR reorganized as a public-benefit corporation.[12] Krantz said the group had operated as an LLC until then.[2] At the same time it announced several projects:[12][2]
| Initiative | Description |
|---|---|
| Reality Portals | Low-latency screens at physical events that act as a window into a VR world, such as High Fidelity, so remote avatars and people in the room can see and talk to each other[12] |
| Multiverse | A plan to mirror a user's avatar and voice into several VR worlds at once and connect them to real-world events, including SVVR meetups, Maker Faire and Augmented World Expo[12] |
| SVVR Studios | An office space in Mountain View, near the Computer History Museum, with demo rooms and meeting spaces[2] |
| Passport membership | A membership program for startups that gives access to SVVR Studios[12][2] |
Road to VR reported that SVVR was also looking at Patreon as a funding source and was promoting open standards for decentralized social VR interoperability.[12]
Conferences and expos
| Event | Dates | Venue | Attendance and exhibitors |
|---|---|---|---|
| SVVR 2014 | 19-20 May 2014[6] | Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California[6] | Attended by 400 people and featured 35 exhibitors[5] |
| SVVR 2015 | 18-19 May 2015[10] | San Jose Convention Center[10] | Attended by over 1,400 people; about 100 companies[5] |
| SVVR 2016 | 27-29 April 2016[5][13] | San Jose Convention Center | Organizers aimed for 3,000 people and 200 companies[5] |
| SVVR 2017 | 29-31 March 2017[3] | San Jose Convention Center[3] | More than 100 exhibitors[3][11] |
Meetups
The monthly meetups began in Mountain View. After the inaugural meeting at the Computer History Museum, the group moved to Hacker Dojo by its fourth meetup in 2013, and the December 2014 holiday event returned to the museum.[6][4][9] The group's Meetup page describes its focus as exploring "advances, new applications, and entrepreneurs advancing virtual reality, augmented reality, computer vision, spatial computing, and related fields." As of September 2026 the page listed more than 6,100 members.[14] The group remains active: SVVR #102, a Meta Connect week meetup, was held on 24 September 2026 at Frontier Tower in San Francisco.[15]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Paul James (2013-06-25). "Videos from the 1st Silicon Valley Virtual Reality (SVVR) Meetup Now Online". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/videos-from-the-1st-silicon-valley-virtual-reality-svvr-meetup-now-online/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Kent Bye (2018-05-17). "#647: Merging IRL events with VR via SVVR's Reality Portals & Metaverse Intiative". Voices of VR Podcast. https://voicesofvr.com/647-merging-irl-events-with-vr-via-svvrs-reality-portals-metaverse-intiative/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 "SVVR 2017 Shines Global Spotlight on Latest in VR Technology and Entertainment". PR Newswire. SVVR. 2017-03-29. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/svvr-2017-shines-global-spotlight-on-latest-in-vr-technology-and-entertainment-300430956.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Paul James (2013-09-06). "Interview: Karl Krantz, Founder of the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Meetup (SVVR)". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/roadtovr-interview-karl-krantz-founder-of-the-silicon-valley-virtual-reality-meetup-svvr/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Kent Bye (2016-03-02). "#311: Karl Krantz on VR Startups, SVVRCon, & Time Dilation". Voices of VR Podcast. https://voicesofvr.com/311-karl-krantz-on-vr-startups-svvrcon-time-dilation/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Paul James (2014-03-29). "First Silicon Valley Virtual Reality 'Conference And Expo' Announced for May". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/first-silicon-valley-virtual-reality-svvr-meetup-conference-expo-announced/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ Kent Bye (2014-07-11). "#50: Karl Krantz on cultivating community through Silicon Valley VR meet up & conference, planning a VR career path, Old VR vs New VR, Second Life lessons on identity & governance, & VR as the Final Platform". Voices of VR Podcast. https://voicesofvr.com/50-karl-krantz-on-cultivating-community-through-silicon-valley-vr-meet-up-conference-planning-a-vr-career-path-old-vr-vs-new-vr-second-life-lessons-on-identity-governance-vr-as-the-final-p/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ Paul James (2014-04-28). "The Faces of SVVR Conference & Expo 2014 - New Speakers and Panellists Announced!". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/faces-svvr-conference-expo-confirms-raft-new-speakers-panellists-exhibitors/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Taylor Freeman (2014-12-13). "Karl Krantz and SVVR bring together the VR family for the holidays". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/karl-krantz-and-svvr-bring-together-the-vr-family-for-the-holidays/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Maria Korolov (2015-01-24). "2015 Silicon Valley VR Conference set for May". Hypergrid Business. http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2015/01/2015-silicon-valley-vr-conference-set-for-may/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Ben Lang (2017-03-26). "100+ AR/VR Companies to Gather at This Week's SVVR 2017 Expo". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/100-arvr-companies-gather-next-weeks-svvr-2017-expo-save-200/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 Kent Bye (2018-05-16). "Merging RL with VR Events via SVVR's Reality Portals & MULTIVERSE". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/merging-irl-events-with-vr-via-svvrs-reality-portals-metaverse/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ Kent Bye (2016-05-03). "SVVR Conference and Expo 2016 Wrap-Up Discussion". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/svvr-conference-expo-2016-wrap-discussion/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ "Silicon Valley Virtual Reality - SVVR". Meetup. https://www.meetup.com/virtualrealitysv/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ "SVVR #102: Meta Connect Week!". Meetup. 2026-09-24. https://www.meetup.com/virtualrealitysv/events/316561837/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.