As we kick off 2018 we wanted to reflect on how much happened in 2017. We've had our first full year in our (mostly) sunny Brighton office and welcomed a full team (a year ago there were just 4 of us!). We announced our first round of funding with $1 million from some of the best investors in the UK and US, enabling us to continue to develop amazing new products and build Curiscope into the brand that unlocks the curiosity in the world around us.
The Virtuali-Tee continues to go from strength to strength and has made its retail debut, now available in John Lewis, Selfridges and the Science Museum, as well as globally online through our website and Amazon. It’s come a long way since our original Kickstarter campaign and now comes in an awesome gift box. With all of this, it felt right that we got back to our roots and shot some traditional video, Ed standing in as Producer and Kim as Director, to create our Virtuali-Tee promo film. Oh yeah, and it’s also now available in Black.
We also went on the road and had a fantastic time at New Scientist Live and a three-week placement at the Science Museum. Ed, in particular, enjoyed getting the keys to the museum and being given free reign after all the visitors had left! (Ed: I also made sure to tell my niece & nephew that after dark everything came to life). Finally, the product had a TV outing on This Morning in the UK and was announced as Evening Standard’s top pick to round off a year in which demand for The Virtuali-Tee exploded.
In October, we published our first book, All About Virtual Reality, with Dorling Kindersley. The opportunity to partner with them and create All About Virtual Reality was an extremely exciting one as DK published the books that drove the curiosity within us when we were younger. The end product is something we’re extremely proud of. Inside you can discover the world of virtual reality, walking in space and going face to face with a T-Rex! You also get stickers to customise your headset, so all in all, a no-brainer.
2017 also (of course) continued our Shark obsession. With our original Youtube video now with over 27m views, we wanted to take Sharks into AR with shARk, launching with arkit for IOS. And, with a year of work behind it, onto high-end headsets, with the release of Operation Apex for Vive. Some fantastic reviews came in for this before the year-end with DigitalTrends saying that the game was as ‘close to living The Blue Planet as I’m going to get.’
2 years into Curiscope, we remain at the start of our journey and remain humbled by all the fantastic feedback and reviews we received towards the end of last year. Some really lovely stories made their way to us towards the end of last year and we’re really excited to keep delivering and building in 2018.
Wishing you the best for the new year ahead.
Ed, Ben & and the Curiscope Team