Meta launches $250K mixed reality fund for 5 Indian startups, details here

As a part of the programme, a group of up to five Indian engineers and new companies will get a monetary grant, alongside exclusive mentoring and direction from the Meta Reality Labs specialists

Meta on Wednesday declared a fresh Mixed Reality (MR) programme in India that has an award of $250,000 for homegrown new companies and developers to construct applications and experiences. They can assemble applications utilising Meta's Presence Platform, the organisation's expansive scope of machine perception and AI capabilities for the Meta Quest Platform and Metaverse. 

The company claims that the fund aims to foster innovation and establish a national XR technology ecosystem.

Meta launch in India: Overview

"Meta is committed to building the XR ecosystem in India. The Presence Platform is an integral part of the metaverse vision, aiming to make virtual experiences more tangible and accessible,” says Sandhya Devanathan, VP for Meta in India.

As a part of the programme, a select group of up to five Indian developers and new companies will get a monetary grant, alongside top-notch mentoring and guidance from the Meta Reality Labs specialists.

They will also have a chance to upload their product to Quest App Lab and become part of Meta's developing developer ecosystem. Meta stated that at the end of the programme, selected startups will also receive an introduction to prominent local venture capital funds.

Devanathan continued, "We believe that this fund and programme will accelerate the creation and adoption of VR and MR experiences in the country and  give Indian developers an opportunity to go global with their innovations."

The fund is now accepting applications and encourages both established and new startups and developers to experiment with the Presence Platform's skills. According to the company, the selected developers will need to incorporate features like Passthrough, Scene Understanding, Spatial Anchors, Shared Spatial Anchors, Voice SDK, Text to Speech, Interaction SDK for Hand Tracking, and Social Presence APIs into either new or existing Meta Quest apps.