WakingApp
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| WakingApp | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Industry | Augmented reality and virtual reality content creation software |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Founder | Alon Melchner, Adiel Gur |
| Headquarters | Tel Aviv, Israel (earlier Rosh Ha'ayin) |
| Notable Personnel | Alon Melchner (founder and president), Adiel Gur (co-founder and CTO), Udi Shani (CEO in 2015-2016), Matan Libis (CEO in 2018-2019) |
| Products | ENTiTi (ENTiTi Creator, ENTiTi Viewer, ENTiTi AR Creator 3.0), WakingApp AR Studio |
| Parent | Scope AR (from December 2019) |
WakingApp was an Israeli software company that made tools for building augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) content without programming. Founded in 2013 and based in Rosh Ha'ayin, with Alon Melchner as founder and president, it developed ENTiTi, a cloud-based platform made up of the ENTiTi Creator authoring tool and the ENTiTi Viewer app.[1][2] By 2018 it was based in Tel Aviv and described its main product as an AR toolset, which it later marketed as WakingApp AR Studio.[3][4]
Enterprise AR company Scope AR announced the acquisition of WakingApp in December 2019, and six of WakingApp's founding team members joined Scope AR to work on its WorkLink platform.[5][6] WakingApp's website then announced that AR Studio would be retired as of 15 February 2020.[7]
History
Founding and early AR apps (2013-2015)
Globes and ISRAEL21c both give 2013 as the founding year and Rosh Ha'ayin as the company's base, with Alon Melchner as founder and president and Udi Shani as chief executive.[1][2] Adiel Gur, the company's chief technology officer, was described in a 2018 conference biography as a co-founder who specialized in computer vision, including image classification and real-time image tracking on mobile devices.[8]
Before its self-service platform, WakingApp built VR and AR apps for game developers and advertisers. One of these let Israeli viewers of the FIFA World Cup "kick" a virtual soccer ball into their television to win points and Domino's Pizza prizes.[2] In a January 2015 press release headlined as its win of IBM's European SmartCamp, the company said Samsung Israel had chosen its platform for the Israeli launch of the Galaxy Note 4, demonstrating the phone with AR at points of sale, and that it planned an official launch of the platform at Mobile World Congress in March 2015. The release described content that appeared as a digital layer over a scanned object on phones, tablets, wearables and smart glasses.[9]
Series C and ENTiTi (2015-2017)
In November 2015 WakingApp raised 4.3 million US dollars in a Series C round. Globes reported that the investors were the Chinese game developer and publisher Youzu Interactive, in its first Israeli investment, an unnamed large Chinese internet and search company, and the existing investors Inimiti VC and Globis Capital.[1] Road to VR reported that the company had previously focused on quick "AR lite" apps of the kind that had become common on smartphones and tablets, and was now turning to consumer VR. ENTiTi Creator let users build content by dragging and dropping assets and building visual scripts. At the time, ENTiTi Viewer ran on Samsung Gear VR, and versions for the Oculus Rift were planned for the following year.[10]
ENTiTi Creator was soft-launched in January 2016 and shown publicly at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the following month.[2] MarTech reported that the platform entered open beta at that point after six months of testing with agencies, architects and studios. It was free for an initial period, with a monthly subscription planned later; VR content could be viewed on Google Cardboard and Gear VR, and AR content through a smartphone.[11] According to ISRAEL21c, about 2,000 users were making around 25 new pieces of content a day by March 2016.[2]
In November 2016 the company, then describing itself as an Autodesk partner, released add-ins for Autodesk Revit and Fusion 360 that converted CAD models into AR or VR content in a few clicks. Projects could be edited further in ENTiTi Creator and viewed on mobile devices, Gear VR, the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive. The company said its staff would demonstrate the add-ins at the Autodesk University (AU) conference in Las Vegas on 15-17 November 2016.[12]
AR toolset, Vuzix and 2018 funding
By October 2018 Matan Libis was chief executive and the company gave its address as 94 Yigal Alon Street in Tel Aviv.[3] On 17 October 2018 WakingApp announced a strategic partnership with Vuzix to support Vuzix smart glasses with ENTiTi AR Creator 3.0. Under the agreement, Vuzix was contracting to buy up to 100,000 limited-term licenses of the platform to distribute to developers and customers of its products, and planned to release demonstration environments for the Vuzix M300 and Vuzix Blade.[3] Libis and Gur were scheduled to present ENTiTi 3.0 in a session for app designers, architects and construction professionals at AWE Tel Aviv on 5 November 2018.[13]
In December 2018 the company raised 2.6 million US dollars in a round led by Globis Capital Partners, with Vuzix also taking part. Libis said the money would go into sales and marketing.[14][15] Reports of its total funding differ. The announcement described the new money as in addition to 9.5 million US dollars raised over the company's five-year history, while Global Corporate Venturing gave 9.5 million US dollars as the total including the new round.[14][15]
In February 2019 WakingApp added visual scripting to its AR design studio, so that users could add logic to a scene by dragging and dropping commands while still having access to the engine's JavaScript API. Design World listed Microsoft, Siemens and Autodesk among its users.[4] The company's website at the time marketed the product as WakingApp AR Studio, claimed more than 40,000 users, and listed offices in Tel Aviv and Rosh Ha'ayin.[16]
Acquisition by Scope AR
Scope AR, an enterprise AR company based in San Francisco, announced in December 2019 that it had acquired WakingApp, by then based in Tel Aviv. The terms were not disclosed. Scope AR said six of WakingApp's founding members would stay with the company, and that the acquisition would accelerate development of WorkLink, its product for AR work instructions and remote assistance. Libis said the team was "thrilled to join the Scope AR team", and Scope AR chief executive Scott Montgomerie said it brought "a great mix of AR development experience and creative thinking".[5][6][17] A notice on WakingApp's homepage thanked users, said the company had been acquired by Scope AR, and stated that AR Studio would be retired as of 15 February 2020, after which the product would no longer be active.[7]
Products
| Product | Introduced | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ENTiTi Creator | Soft launch January 2016; public beta at Mobile World Congress, February 2016 | Cloud-based authoring tool for PC and Mac with drag-and-drop assets and visual scripting, no coding required[2][10] |
| ENTiTi Viewer | By November 2015 | Free iOS and Android app for viewing ENTiTi content, including on Gear VR[10][11] |
| Revit and Fusion 360 add-ins | November 2016 | Converted Autodesk CAD models into AR or VR content for editing in ENTiTi Creator[12] |
| ENTiTi AR Creator 3.0 | 2018 | AR toolset with SLAM, QR code and image-target tracking, JavaScript scripting, a mobile physically based rendering engine, ARKit and ARCore support, and an SDK for integration into existing apps[3] |
| WakingApp AR Studio | Marketed by 2019; retired 15 February 2020 | Professional AR studio with visual scripting, cloud image recognition and app integration[4][7] |
Details of the ENTiTi platform are covered in the ENTiTi article.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Globes correspondent (2015-11-05). "Israeli augmented reality co WakingApp raises $4.3m". Globes. https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-israeli-augmented-reality-co-wakingapp-raises-43m-1001078998. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Abigail Klein Leichman (2016-05-08). "Now anyone can add virtual reality to games and services". ISRAEL21c. https://archive.israel21c.org/now-anyone-can-add-virtual-reality-to-games-and-services/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "WakingApp Enters into Strategic Partnership with Vuzix to Support Vuzix Smart Glasses with ENTiTi Content Creator AR Platform". WakingApp Ltd. (press release). 2018-10-17. https://cdn.nwe.io/files/x/41/29/46747f62cd3d696459aa3d550121.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Leslie Langnau (2019-02-18). "WakingApp adds visual scripting functions to AR studio". Design World. https://www.designworldonline.com/wakingapp-adds-visual-scripting-functions-to-ar-studio/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Scope AR Acquires Augmented Reality Toolset Company WakingApp". PR Newswire. Scope AR. 2019-12-12. https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/scope-ar-acquires-augmented-reality-toolset-company-wakingapp-809948176.html. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Kyt Dotson (2019-12-11). "Scope AR acquires augmented reality toolset company WakingApp". SiliconANGLE. https://siliconangle.com/2019/12/11/scope-ar-acquires-augmented-reality-toolset-company-wakingapp/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Professional Augmented Reality Studio - WakingApp". WakingApp (archived 27 March 2020). https://web.archive.org/web/20200327173930/https://www.wakingapp.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ "Adiel Gur". AWE Tel Aviv. https://tlv.augmentedworldexpo.com/speakers/adiel-gur/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ "'WakingApp' Won IBM's European SmartCamp and Will Compete in the U.S. SmartCamp Finals". PR Newswire. WakingApp. 2015-01-06. https://prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/wakingapp-won-ibms-european-smartcamp-and-will-compete-in-the-us-smartcamp-finals-287588531.html. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Paul James (2015-11-21). "WakingApp Raises $4.3M to Build an Accessible VR/AR Content Creation Platform". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/waking-app-raises-4-3m-to-build-an-accessible-vr-content-creation-platform/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Barry Levine (2016-02-22). "Marketers: Here's A Free, No-Programming Toolkit For Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality". MarTech. https://martech.org/marketers-heres-a-free-no-programming-toolkit-for-virtual-realityaugmented-reality. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "One-Click Collaboration Turns 3D Models into Interactive AR/VR". PR Newswire. WakingApp. 2016-11-14. https://prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/one-click-collaboration-turns-3d-models-into-interactive-arvr-601095155.html. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ "Matan Libis". AWE Tel Aviv. https://tlv.augmentedworldexpo.com/speakers/matan-libis/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 AIT News Desk (2018-12-10). "Wakingapp, Provider of an Augmented Reality (AR) Toolset, Announces a New Round of Funding". AiThority. https://aithority.com/technology/augmented-reality/wakingapp-provider-of-an-augmented-reality-ar-toolset-announces-a-new-round-of-funding/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Robert Lavine (2018-12-07). "Corporate venturing deal net: 3-7 December 2018". Global Corporate Venturing. https://globalventuring.com/blog/2018/12/07/corporate-venturing-deal-net-3-7-december-2018/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ "Professional Augmented Reality Studio - WakingApp". WakingApp (archived 15 January 2019). https://web.archive.org/web/20190115223001/https://www.wakingapp.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.
- ↑ Sam Sprigg (2019-12-17). "Scope AR acquires Augmented Reality toolset company WakingApp". Auganix. https://www.auganix.org/scope-ar-acquires-augmented-reality-toolset-company-wakingapp/. Retrieved 2026-10-21.