XRSpace

XRSPACE
Information
Type	Private
Industry	Virtual Reality
Founded	2017
Founder	Peter Chou
Headquarters	Taiwan
Notable Personnel	Peter Chou (Chairman and CEO)
Products	VR headsets, metaverse platforms
Website	https://www.xrspace.io

XRSpace (stylized XRSPACE) is a Taiwanese Virtual Reality and metaverse company founded in 2017 by Peter Chou, the technology entrepreneur who co-founded and led HTC. The company first drew attention in 2020 when it revealed the Mova (later renamed Manova), a Standalone 5G VR headset built around hand tracking, together with a Social VR platform of the same name. After the headset failed to find a mass audience, XRSpace shifted its focus to software, building the consumer "music metaverse" PartyOn and the enterprise platform GOXR.

Peter Chou had worked on the project quietly for about three years before the public reveal, after stepping back from day-to-day leadership of HTC, where he had been a visible figure during the company's smartphone heyday. The company is backed by major Taiwanese institutions, most notably the manufacturing group Foxconn (Hon Hai), which announced a planned investment of up to 100 million US dollars in 2022.

History

XRSpace was established in 2017, but it kept its hardware and software work confidential for roughly three years. On 26 May 2020 the company publicly unveiled its first product, a standalone VR headset called the Mova, alongside a virtual world named Manova. Peter Chou pitched the device as a "social-first" headset aimed at ordinary consumers rather than gamers or enterprise users, and emphasized that it could be worn and used without any external controller through camera-based Hand tracking. The headset was priced at 599 US dollars, with developer kits offered from the time of the announcement, and a consumer launch initially targeted for the third quarter of 2020 in Taiwan.

Shortly after the reveal, XRSpace changed the headset's name from Mova to Manova following a naming dispute with an unrelated company called Mova; it later applied the Manova branding to the social platform as well, calling it "Manova World" to distinguish it from the hardware. The launch slipped, and a limited beta test ran at the end of 2020. Reviewers and testers found the platform thin on content and the hardware mediocre in both performance and comfort, and the device never achieved a broad commercial rollout.

By 2022 the company had effectively set hardware aside and repositioned itself as a metaverse software developer. It launched the social event app PartyOn and the metaverse platform GOXR, both of which were distributed through Meta's App Lab, the experimental section of the Meta Quest store.

Funding and ownership

XRSpace's most significant backer is Foxconn (Hon Hai Technology Group). On 22 February 2022 the two companies announced a memorandum of understanding under which Foxconn would invest up to 100 million US dollars in XRSpace, with 15 million as a first stage, to build a "global metaverse ecosystem" combining XRSpace's software with Foxconn's hardware manufacturing. The first portion of that commitment closed as a 25 million US dollar round announced on 20 April 2023, which also included roughly 10 million US dollars from Taiwan's National Development Fund channeled through the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA).

Technology

XRSpace's hardware and platforms are built around the idea of controller-free social interaction. The original Manova headset used onboard cameras with deep-learning algorithms to track the user's bare hands, so that people could point, grab, and gesture without holding a controller, and it represented each person with a full-body digital avatar rather than a floating head and hands. The headset also performed space scanning, using its cameras to map a physical room and reproduce its layout inside the virtual world. XRSpace built the device as a standalone 5G product, integrating a removable cellular modem so the glasses could connect over 5G, LTE, and Wi-Fi networks.

After the pivot, the company carried the same social and avatar technology into its software platforms, which run on third-party VR hardware and on mobile devices instead of XRSpace's own headset.

Products

XRSpace's catalog spans a single headset and two metaverse platforms.

Product	Year	Type	Notes
Mova / Manova	2020	Standalone VR headset	Announced 26 May 2020 at 599 US dollars; Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 platform, 6 GB RAM, 1440x1440 per eye (2880x1440 total), 100-degree field of view, 90 Hz, 470 g, 4,600 mAh battery; camera-based hand tracking with a single 3DoF controller; 5G via removable modem; offered in white and orange; renamed from Mova to Manova after a naming dispute
Manova (platform)	2020	Social VR world	Persistent social world launched with the headset; public spaces such as a city center, cinema, music stage and nightclub, private rooms, and "MagicLOHAS" wellness activities including yoga, tai chi and meditation
GOXR	2021	Enterprise metaverse	Platform that lets enterprises, brands, museums and galleries build and host their own virtual spaces and events; distributed via Meta App Lab
PartyOn	2021	Social music metaverse	Consumer platform for music events from sing-along parties to large virtual concerts; XRSpace reported more than 700,000 users and over 50,000 user-generated parties by 2023

Reception and market position

XRSpace launched at an ambitious moment, positioning the Manova as the smallest and lightest standalone headset of its time and as one of the first to ship with 5G, but it entered the market during the economic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic and against far better-funded rivals. The hardware drew interest for its controller-free, avatar-driven approach, yet the limited beta exposed a shortage of content and hardware that testers judged underwhelming, and the headset never reached wide release. Commentators characterized the quiet wind-down of the headset program as an unceremonious end to the original Manova vision, even as the company pressed on with its metaverse apps.

The arrival of Foxconn as a strategic investor in 2022, followed by support from Taiwan's National Development Fund, gave XRSpace fresh capital and aligned it with one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers as it refocused on software and partnerships. For its PartyOn music metaverse the company worked with partners including the real-time engagement firm Agora and the headset makers Pico and Rokid to reach audiences in Greater China, with the platform running on Pico Neo VR headsets, Rokid Air AR glasses, the XRSpace Manova and the Meta Quest series.