Glo secures $3m in funding, IMAX VR partnership

LOS ANGELES and HONG KONG, Dec. 14, 2017: Free-roaming VR system developer, Glo Inc, today announced that it has raised $3m in seed funding from Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, CRCM Ventures, Presence Capital Fund, Mindworks Ventures and angel investors. The investment will be used to accelerate content development and global deployment of their proprietary VR system, Glostation, through licensing, franchising, and self-operational units. Glo Inc also announced that IMAX Corporation has licensed its GloStation technology platform - beginning with its zombie VR experience, Deadwood Mansion - for its flagship IMAX VR Centre in Los Angeles, with rollout to additional centres in New York and others following shortly.

"GloStation is a highly interactive, social and thrilling virtual reality experience - making it a perfect fit for IMAX's location-based VR centres," said Rob Lister, Chief Business Development Officer, IMAX Corp. "Customer feedback on the Deadwood Mansion VR experience at our centre in Los Angeles has been fantastic, and we look forward to working with Glo Inc. to bring GloStation to other IMAX VR Centres around the world."

Glo Inc was founded in 2016 by Steve Zhao and is the first company to introduce "hyper-reality escape room" experience, where friends need to work together to complete an objective and "escape". Glo Inc's first experience is Deadwood Mansion, a 30-minute VR experience that immerses a group of friends in the hunt for a deranged doctor accused of illegal experiments. The whole time booking time is 60 minutes, which includes the VR experience, tutorial, on and off boarding, and video sharing. Steve is a games veteran who previously created Blue Tea Games, an international development studio known for its Hidden Object Adventure titles.

"We opened our showroom in Hong Kong late June, and for the next 100 days, we were 100% sold out each single day. Weekend tickets are now booking months in advance into 2018. Now, with this new investment, we will be able to scale our proprietary free-roaming VR system GloStation to cities globally. We're delighted to be working with IMAX to introduce our experience to their world-class VR centres." said Steve Zhao, CEO of Glo Inc.

"GloStation provides a unique immersive VR experience that combines the latest VR technologies with highly social elements. Steve is a successful serial entrepreneur with roots in Hong Kong, and we believe Glo will be a leader in the next generation of Hong Kong startups." commented Cindy Chow, Executive Director of Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund.

About Glo Inc.

Glo Inc developed GloStation, a proprietary free-roaming VR system used for entertainment venues globally through licensing, franchising, and self-operational units. IMAX became one of the first partners to utilize the GloStation technology. Glo Inc also creates their own content, including Deadwood Mansion, a 30-minute VR zombie experience.

Glo Inc was founded in 2016 by Steve Zhao, a games veteran who previously created Blue Tea Games, an international development studio known for its Hidden Object Adventure titles.

The company is venture-funded, with operations in Hong Kong and soon the U.S.