Cinema ReImagined.

Parallax VR
Investment Summary
Feb 2015

Stage of Development:
Sector:
Total Equity Sought:

Early Stage
Cinematic content for VR
300K seed funding
(EIS compliant)

Share Price:
Equity Valuation (pre-money):
Contact:

1
2M
Ben Hardyment
[email protected]

What if...

> ... sliding doors opened to reveal Darth Vader standing

right in front of you, staring down at you with his infamous
gasping breath?
> ... you were floating inches away from Sandra Bullock as she
struggles to survive in space?
>... you could fly like Rose, standing on the front rails of the
Titanic as it majestically sails across the ocean?
> ... out of the darkness of the Nostromo, Ridley Scotts Alien
emerges to stand face to face with you, its teeth snapping inches
from your face?
> ... you relive Sam Neills wonder and awe as he sees dinosaurs
up close for the first time or comes face to teeth with a T-Rex?
What if is the starting premise of every film ever made.
What if we could put you directly in each of the scenarios above?
You would be taking the first step in the evolution from traditional
passive cinema, as we know it today, to the immersive cinema of
tomorrow and into these terrifying yet wondrous worlds. We want
to put you right into the middle of the magic of movies.
To start this journey, Parallax VR intends to make a working
photographic parallax demonstration to expand the boundaries of
film into the oncoming revolution of VR. The end goal is to make
the first true photographic parallax feature film: the Avatar of VR.

What is Parallax?
> Parallax is the effect whereby the position or direction of an
object appears to differ when viewed from different positions,
i.e. the foreground moves at a different pace to the background.
Our technology delivers this effect when the footage is captured
and rendered with our hardware and software, then viewed
through a VR headset.

We need to get rid of the proscenium. Were never going to be

totally immersive as long as were looking at a square, whether
its a movie screen or a computer screen. Weve got to put
the [audience] inside the experience, where no matter where
you look youre surrounded by a three-dimensional experience.
Thats the future.
Steven Spielberg to George Lucas, 2013. USC Film School symposium 2013

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Over 6 million headsets will be sold in 2015

Business Activity

> Parallax VR is developing a proprietary real-time content engine

to enable the production of true 3D cinematic content for the
new generation of Virtual Reality headsets, such as Oculus Rift
recently acquired by Facebook for $2B. Currently many game
companies and a few stereo 3D film companies are targeting the
attractive new platform, leaving a void in the market for content
that reacts like a game but looks like a Hollywood feature film.
The content pipeline relies heavily on photographic content
combined with CG tools that result in a photorealistic final
product. Games enable dynamic user-initiated movement within
a real-time 3D graphic environment, but compromise on the
visual rendition in order to achieve this dynamic interaction.
We have developed techniques that allow for content created
(using the Hollywood creative pipeline) to be experienced from
within a real-time 3D graphics engine without compromising
the Hollywood aesthetic.
These tools will allow the company, by 2016, to release the firstever free viewpoint cinematic short, featuring photographed
actors / environments and seamless integration of Hollywoodquality visual effects to deliver an unmatched experience that
combines the immersion spectacle of VR with the photorealistic
impact of a Hollywood feature film.

VR was a sensation
at the last E3
Gaming Expo

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This is a unique opportunity to invest at an early stage into

a Cinematic VR production studio that has already begun
the journey towards delivering ground-breaking content
and experiences at this most propitious of moments in
the evolution of true 3-D Virtual Reality.
Key Points

O
 ur technology has already benefitted from substantial
prior investment.
The technical team has over 18 years of VFX experience on
72 films including StarTrek, Minority Report, The Dark Knight
Rises and Jurassic World.
Over 16 years of extensive Film, TV, Game Audio and Music
production experience.
Strong relationships with hardware industry leaders, including
Oculus, RED Camera and Panavision.
VFX projects of current Founder include Jurassic World
(Universal), Tomorrowland (Disney).
Long-term collaborations with music and audio engineers
at renowned Abbey Road and Air Studios.
Outstanding Founder relationships with composers, who have
created soundtracks for the Harry Potter series, Downton Abbey
and the Halo game franchise.
Team includes experienced technology entrepreneurs with
successful exits.
Our approach deviates significantly from the other photographic
VR offerings coming to the market in that it enables true 3D
parallax within a photographic scene. ParallaxVR maintains the
true 3D spatial layout of a scene, while the other approaches
attempt to achieve the perception of 3D through stereo
separation of 2D footage similar to a glasses-based stereo 3D film.
The difference can be best described as the difference between
looking around / travelling within a contemporary video game
versus looking around within a Quicktime movie or on Google
Street-View. In the parallax experience, the spatial representation
of the imagery feels natural and movements within the
environment feel natural whereas the spatial representation
of imagery within the non-parallax environment feels as through
you are standing inside a sphere or bubble that has been wrapped
with video.

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Just make it great!

The only piece of advice Steve Jobs ever gave
John Lasseter about Pixars first short film

Company History

> Parallax VR was founded in 2014 by a diverse multi-disciplinary

team, aligned by the drive to truly break ground in the history
of cinema through its constantly evolving relationship
with technology.
The company has been built on a base of technology developed
by Kent Demaine who, for the past 14 years with his company
OOOii (a Parallax shareholder) has specialized in futuretechnology design and information visualization for the
Hollywood feature-film industry.
Featured work includes: Minority Report, Star Trek Into Darkness,
The Dark Knight Rises, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol,
The Island and Enemy of the State.

Kents work in Minority Report was truly ground-breaking

For the past decade, when Hollywood directors such
as Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, Michael Bay and Brad Bird
dream of the future, they turn to Kent and his team to build it.
Fortunately for Parallax VR, many of the same team
and technologies will deliver the content.
Some highlights of past work can be found here:
vimeo.com/66283275
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Market Opportunity

The consumer Virtual Reality market will be worth

$5.2bn by 2018 Lifelogging, Virtual Reality
> Oculus Rifts $2B acquisition by Facebook really does mean that
consumer VR is here. After looking at the details and the available
markets, no one is questioning the deal. VR was the standout
attraction at last months E3 Convention and there seems to
be no shortage of innovation in the emerging sector.
Oculus are not the only ones developing headsets (they have
already sold over 100,000 developer kits); there is also Sony,
and the extent of developer support is already very significant.
Just as the iPhone started the smartphone boom, so Oculus
has kicked off VR.

6 Million+ units will sell in 2015.

At their peak in 2008, Games console sales hit 100M units, and
whilst initially the focus for VR will be on some of the gaming
content in the pipeline, a similar peak is anticipated in due course.
In 2015 there will be over 6 million headsets sold, yet as the
market hadnt previously existed, there will be no Hollywoodstandard feature-length cinematic VR content ready.
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Market Opportunity
Continued

Just as Pixar with Toy Story, by accelerating towards the production

of a global first in this case, a truly immersive, free-movement,
full-length cinematic VR feature film we will gain momentum
in the marketplace and lead where others follow.
The timing could not be better for seed investment in this sector.

Gartners 2013 Technology Hype Cycle

As you can see, Virtual Reality is starting to come out of the wellknown Trough of Disillusionment, so for the next decade there
can only be upside, albeit at a pace where expectation is more
measured than at the Information Trigger point of this graph.

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Sales and Marketing

> At the current stage, this business is all about delivering a

proof of concept, and for Parallax VR that has to be a truly
great VR demo short. The execution of this short will dictate
the future for the business, as it will provide feedback from the
market of users, as well as secure our access to the significant
funds required to develop the technology to the extent that it can
support a full VR production.
Here are the critical initial steps that we see as necessary towards
achieving our goals.
1. Develop high-throughput graphics architecture required for
real-time true 3D camera-based content rendering. After three
years and significant investment in development, this step
is complete.
2. Use this foundation to produce a parallax VR demo, as a proof
of concept and statement of differentiation.
3. This demo will be used to raise sufficient funding (in the region
of 3M to 5M) in 2015 to evolve the software and hardware
to actually make the genuine free viewpoint short to be
experienced using the consumer headset in 2016.
4. This short will demonstrate the full potential of the technology
and support the partnership initiatives necessary to raise
finance for the fully fledged feature-length film, in conjunction
with a major studio.

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Sales and Marketing

Continued

Our technology would be used to market major productions.

The first hire from RED Camera, who is now acting as Oculuss
Hollywood liaison, is a potential member of our board of advisors.

A six-camera array (set up for seamless 12K resolution shoot)

We are currently working with the creator of the Panavision
Genesis on architecting the multi-camera platform required to
deliver true parallax. In order to focus the business model and
identify the general platform requirements we are also talking
to Paramounts marketing department.
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Competition and
Differentiation

Survios
> A recent start-up, which closed a $4M Venture round with
Shasta Ventures within months of forming. Survios shares roots
with Oculus. Both companies grew with support from USCs
Institute for Creative Technologies. Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey
worked with Survios founders on Project Holodeck. The Survios
prototype uses the Oculus Rift as its goggles, but the company
says future models will use a different headset.
Their core focus is developing immersive user experiences that
can be applied to a lot of industries and different categories.

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Competition and
Differentiation
Continued

Jaunt VR
> Following a $350,000 cash injection from British broadcaster
BSKYB in December 2013, it took less than eight months for their
team to close a $7M round in Venture Funding from Redpoint
Ventures and BSKYB. This was rapidly followed by a further
round of $28M in August 2014 from a group that includes
Redpoint & Google Ventures.
Jaunt is developing an end-to-end solution for creating what
they call cinematic content. Their software tools stitch together
images from their proprietary cameras so that editors can use
tools like Final Cut to master projects.
Key Differentiators

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Games are non mass-market, whereas Film/TV is.

Cinematic rendering opens VR up to a wider base of clients.
360-degree stereo camera-based content require fundamental
re-build to achieve true spatial 3-D.
Our tools leverage the existing Hollywood-asset pipeline,
allowing us to work with existing, available creative.
Our software and hardware is being developed to service the
needs of the producers and studios that we already work with
a network built over 18 years of feature-film experience.
Current VR players will require a ground up rebuild of their
architectures in order to deliver the same realtime
cinematic experience.

Management Team

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____________________
Kent Demaine
A future technology visionary, Kent has designed some of the
most memorable film technology sequences in recent history.
In a 17-year career, his designs have featured in over 50 feature
films: MI:3, Enemy of the State and Fast and Furious. He has also
won awards for his VFX supervision on commercials for Apple,
Porsche, Jaguar, Toyota, Budweiser and Sony, amongst others.
Kent received his BSc in Computer Science with a maths minor
from the University of Virginia.
____________________
Ben Hardyment
An experienced technology entrepreneur, Ben launched Zapper
in 2009, a 5M turnover internet business. It made Dragons Den
history in 2012 by attracting the highest-ever offer of investment
in the history of the BBC series. Previous significant exits include
Webflix in 2002, the first online DVD rental business in the UK.
It was sold to Lovefilm in 2006. Ben studied English Literature at
Warwick University, Screenwriting at USC and directed his first
feature film at just 26 years old on 16mm in southern India.
____________________
Darrell Alexander
Inspired by his experience as a violinist on the Oscar-winning
soundtrack to The English Patient, Darrell formed Cool Music,
which represents musicians and composers on hundreds of films,
games, television dramas and records. Projects include the Oscarwinning score of Finding Neverland to the Harry Potter films,
The Edge of Tomorrow and Downton Abbey. Games include Halo
4, Command & Conquer and Angry Birds. Darrell studied at The
Royal Academy of Music, the Leipzig Conservatoire and UCLA.
_____________________
Matthew Alexander
Matthew began VFX in 1996 on Brian de Palmas original Mission:
Impossible. This led to him co-founding Bionic Digital at Pinewood
Studios, which provided VFX on Daylight, The Saint, The Jackal,
101 Dalmatians, Event Horizon, Lost in Space and most notably
Stanley Kubricks Eyes Wide Shut. His passion for hardware and
its relationship to VFX has been developed through work on
Ridley Scotts Body of Lies and Tony Scotts Unstoppable.
He is currently working on Jurassic World, produced by
Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall.

Technology

Real-time Architecture Differentiation

> Our proprietary software nGINE is being developed to
combine the following when viewed through a VR headset:
Photographic background content.
Computer-generated content
Camera-based content, including actors, captured by
camera arrays.
Tremendous power is required to achieve this in a worldregistered true 3-D environment. This will be possible in future
generations of headsets. As these appear we will be ready with
the best early content.
nGINE is native and scalable, and takes advantage of many core
hardware architectures to deliver the throughput necessary for
true 3D real-time rendering.
It has been honed on major Hollywood projects but of course,
only within single angles or shots. This has enabled it to cope
with operating easily in 4K cinematic resolutions.
These resolutions are required to provide a truly realistic world,
especially for VR, and to render in real-time the necessary layers to
give the coveted parallax effect. This requires processing power
that is a few years away.
However, this is what will give us time and, in the main short film,
we will restrict the effects to specific shots in which the viewpoint
is carefully directed so as to minimise the processing power
required to stitch shots together from multiple cameras together
to make the VR experience truly immersive and credible.

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Funding and Use of Funds

> The company has been funded to date by the founders.

The funds received from this round will be used for working
capital to develop the business and specifically:

Funding requirement timeline

Adapt current software and produce demo.

Establish offices in London and Los Angeles for Parallax VR.
Build a website that reflects the brand and ethos.
Complete the A-Round necessary to fully
deliver the short through further development of software
and hardware.

Software Dev / 3 - 5M / 18 - 24 months

Content Dev / 0.75M - 1M
Development Team Size: 10
Technology Milestones
Cinematic Deep Scene w/ 2D Parallax
Z- Depth Alpha Layered 360 video
Rigid Body 3D Geometry Integration
for Ground Planes
Cinematic Limited Viewpoint Scene
w/ Perceived True Parallax
Viewpoint driven real-time Interpolation
of photographic imposters
3D Photographic Geometry Acquisition
and Integration
Stationary, non-dynamic objects
Add dynamic texture mapping
Add real-time reflections / lighting

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Summary Financials

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

2015

2016

2017

Motion Picture Marketing

50,000

150,000

200,000

1,250,000

6,000,000

Advertising Production

75,000

200,000

275,000

1,500,000

9,000,000

Hardware Sales/Rentals

500,000

2,000,000

Software Licensing

350,000

850,000

Motion Picture Rev. Share

25,000,000

Gross Sales Revenue

125,000

350,000

475,000

3,600,000

42,850,000

Hardware Development

25,000

10,000

250,000

350,000

635,000

850,000

1,150,000

Software Development

50,000

50,000

500,000

750,000

1,350,000

4,000,000

8,000,000

Production Costs

50,000

30,000

62,500

175,000

237,500

1,375,000

20,000,000

Website and Offices

15,000

15,000

15,000

15,000

60,000

120,000

600,000

2,500

2,500

2,500

2,500

10,000

50,000

250,000

5,000

10,000

20,000

20,000

55,000

150,000

750,000

10,000

10,000

20,000

20,000

60,000

300,000

3,000,000

Marketing
Travel
Personnel
Total Operating Expenses

157,500

127,500

870,000

1,332,500

2,407,500

6,845,000

33,750,000

EBITDA

-157,500

-127,500

-745,000

-982,500

-1,932,500

-3,245,000

9,100,000

Cum. Cash Requirement

-157,500

-285,000

-1,030,000

-2,012,500

-2,012,500

-5,257,500

3,842,500

Peak Cash Requirement

-5,257,500

> Overall the company believes its projections for growth are
conservative. representing a fraction of the total market potential.
Our 2017 projections suggest we participate in less than 2% of the
motion-picture marketing and product-advertising budgets that
will be dedicated to VR.
The directors expect that the likely exit route for investors
would be via a trade sale with potential purchasers being major
Hollywood studios, competitors or alternatively an IPO on
the back of the first major motion-picture production.

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