DreamPark, the creator of what it calls “the world’s largest downloadable combined actuality (XR) theme park,” stated it has raised $1.1 million in seed funding.
The funding will speed up DreamPark’s mission to make Earth price taking part in once more by remodeling extraordinary areas into extraordinary adventures by means of combined actuality know-how. I bought a demo of the sport in Yerba Buena Park in San Francisco and it made me smile. It additionally made me suppose it was a part of a fairly good plan to persuade property homeowners to get extra out of their leisure venues.
However we’ll get to that in a bit. Lengthy Journey Ventures led the funding spherical, with participation from Founders Inc.
The corporate is the brainchild of Aidan Wolf, CEO of DreamPark; Kevin Habich, cofounder; and cofounder Brent Bushnell. They got here up with the concept whereas working at Two-Bit Circus, a zany leisure venue in Los Angeles run by Bushnell. Bushnell inspired the concept, incubated it and have become a cofounder.
Positioned on the forefront of combined actuality innovation, DreamPark stated it’s capturing a major early benefit within the international XR (prolonged actuality) reside occasion market, valued at $3.6 billion in 2024 and projected to surge to $190.3 billion by 2034 at a 48.7% compound annual progress charge (CAGR). This explosive progress trajectory presents a possibility that DreamPark’s know-how and enterprise mannequin are uniquely designed to handle, the corporate stated.
“We’re constructing the world’s largest theme park – one which exists in every single place and is accessible to everybody. We need to make getting out to play worthwhile once more,” stated Bushnell. “This funding permits us to broaden our footprint of entry factors throughout the nation quickly, develop partnerships with premium IP holders, and proceed enhancing our know-how to ship magical experiences that convey individuals again to real-world areas.”
Bushnell is the eldest son of Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell. And the youthful Bushnell is aware of the prices of investing in bodily properties, as he runs Two-Bit Circus in downtown Los Angeles. It’s constructed inside a bodily warehouse, and Bushnell’s firm has to pay for that property — even weathering the pandemic. However with DreamPark, he can reinvigorate a bodily venue with out investing something in a brand new property. Against this, a brand new digital actuality leisure venue can value greater than $1 million to open.
Arms-on demo
Wolf and Habich, and Bushnell’s sister Alyssa Bushnell, confirmed me the DreamPark digital theme park in San Francisco within the park close to the Metreon constructing. There was a live performance happening on the time and it was very noisy. However the sport labored high-quality anyway.
Trying down at my toes, Wolf stated the QR code on the mat on the groun was an “entry level.” That’s the place you’ll be able to scan and enter the digital world. The corporate continues to be constructing a entrance finish for distributing the headsets, however individuals will have the ability to convey their mixed-reality headsets from house and play the identical content material.
“We’re setting these up throughout,” Wolf stated. “As soon as an space is mapped, it’s there and also you simply present up and play. The massive distinction right here is that DreamParks are locations. They exist in the actual world.”
The mapped space was round 50,000 sq. toes within the park, so it was a fairly large sport house. Quickly, the corporate will break into 100,000 sq. toes for the sport with one other replace. That’s about 10 instances the restricted dimension of Meta’s VR headsets.
“We’re going well beyond the standard limits,” Wolf stated. “I believe this basically modifications what combined actuality means. Now it’s not this front room expertise certain to the sofa. It’s an precise world to stroll round and discover and contact. As soon as we get individuals there, we’re gonna actually see that cognitive shift, the place now augmented actuality (AR) is one thing I can exit and expertise, like having fun with a live performance.”
The cofounders gave me a headset to put on. The primary one didn’t work, however a second one functioned high-quality. It was a modified Meta Quest 3 headset that was locked down so it will play simply the DreamPark sport. It took a short while to load after which I regarded by means of the headset. Because of the outward-facing cameras, I used to be capable of see the park in combined actuality. That meant I didn’t journey over something as I walked round.
I held the headset to my brow and regarded round. I might see a Mario-like set of bricks floating within the air, and floating digital cash alongside the bodily path. I began strolling round and selecting up the cash and tapping the bricks to gather factors within the sport. I didn’t go the place there have been individuals mendacity on the grass, however I didn’t handle to navigate to some lava pits in the course of the park. The founders identified that far-off from me, on the Carnaval live performance stage, there was a boss. Usually, if there was no live performance, I might have waltzed over to that location and engaged in a boss battle.
The graphics had been rudimentary, 8-bit type, and but I didn’t thoughts it in any respect as a result of novelty of seeing them overlaid on the actual world. Nonetheless, I used to be reluctant to go strolling within the lava pits, as that was a nasty concept within the digital world and I one way or the other felt like it will be a nasty concept to stroll there within the bodily world.
“Our graphics are extra cartoonish, however our Wizard theme has a extra practical look,” Wolf stated. “We’re creating 4 theme parks.”
Certainly one of them is a sci-fi Crash Course, which is an impediment course. And DreamPark is working with a accomplice as nicely. There’s one with a psychedelic theme and one that’s ambient enjoyable.
It’s simple to show the expertise right into a multiplayer sport. You may, as an example, race across the park and full a timed expertise in competitors with your mates.
The enchantment of a digital overlay on the actual world
DreamPark transforms bodily areas into immersive mixed-reality environments by means of its community of entry factors: bodily markers, like QR codes, that, when scanned with a Meta Quest 3 headset or cell system, unlock digital overlays on real-world areas. The corporate has already established profitable installations at Santa Monica’s Third Avenue Promenade and The LA County Honest, with deliberate expansions in Seattle, Orange County and several other expos and company occasions.
It’s fairly low-cost to create new areas. All they actually should do is scan an space, overlay a digital sport stuffed with easy video games, after which drop a mat with a QR code on the property so individuals can scan it and begin taking part in the sport. For property homeowners, this implies they will draw individuals again to their location, getting them to re-engage with the place as a result of individuals need to play a digital sport on the bodily place. It’s a solution to improve the worth of a bodily property, utilizing digital leisure.
Bushnell pitched the concept for DreamPark on CNBC’s Shark Tank tv present. The sharks didn’t go for it, however the publicity from the present helped floor traders, Bushnell stated. (The Bushnell household goes to look at Augmented World Expo in Lengthy Seaside, California, in June).
“As a longtime investor, I’ve seen numerous pitches promising to merge the digital and bodily worlds, and DreamPark is the primary that actually delivers on the real-world metaverse,” stated Cyan Banister, cofounder and basic accomplice at Lengthy Journey Ventures, in a press release. “Aidan is a visionary builder of immersive methods, and Brent is a pioneer in playful public areas, making them the proper staff to make rising tech really feel human, accessible, and unforgettable. They’ve cracked the code on location-based AR, delivering a 10x expertise that’s as magical because it’s scalable. This isn’t simply immersive leisure; it’s an entire new class.”
The funding comes when retail landlords and occasion venues search progressive options to drive foot site visitors and enhance engagement. Whereas typical VR venues value over $1 million to construct, DreamPark delivers a completely immersive, multiplayer expertise that pays for itself in its first month of income.
“Our capital expense is like one in every of a hundredth of our opponents, which is superb. After which this lets us transfer astronomically quicker than everybody else. I type of imagine in a Nintendo philosophy, which is, they take antiquated know-how, however they use it in a brand new manner that makes it worthwhile. We’re utilizing entry factors,” Wolf stated.
There’s no building or everlasting infrastructure required. It’s a radically extra reasonably priced solution to flip underused areas into high-impact locations.
“We’re not simply creating partaking content material, we’re constructing a platform that revitalizes communities by giving individuals a purpose to assemble, play, and join in bodily areas in actual life,” stated Wolf. “DreamPark bridges the digital and bodily worlds, creating a brand new class of play the place the magic of digital worlds enhances real-life connections. We’re reimagining what’s doable when the areas round us change into canvases for shared journey and creativeness.”
The seed funding will assist DreamPark’s aggressive growth plans, together with deploying entry factors throughout new areas, launching partnerships with main IP holders to create branded theme park experiences, and increasing the corporate’s fleet of rental Meta Quest 3 headsets models nationwide.
DreamPark is rising the event staff to speed up content material creation and platform capabilities. DreamPark’s management staff brings deep expertise from firms together with Two-Bit Circus, Smiley Cap, and SNAP, Inc., positioning them to execute their bold imaginative and prescient of making the infrastructure for worldwide mixed-reality leisure.
The place it’s going
Bushnell stated the staff has been working for round two years. However the founders have been concerned with AR for greater than a decade. They confirmed up at Two-Bit Circus and began making mixed-reality video games, which bear in mind bodily actuality as a sport house. There are about 10 contractors within the firm engaged on content material.
They discovered that gamers are blissful to put on the headsets for half-hour at a time, notably when they’re taking part in with associates.
“We see ourselves extra as a tech firm than like a location primarily based leisure firm. We hope to remain small as a core staff whereas nonetheless reaching hundreds of thousands or billions of individuals,” Wolf stated.
The video games are in a personal alpha testing section now.
“I might say that the headset we at present have in our arms is the precise headset we have to convey this to the lots. So the great half in regards to the firm we’re constructing is we aren’t ready for some like watershed second,” Wolf stated. “We’re not ready for something now. We’re simply getting it into a number of locations the place individuals already congregate.”
DreamPark is popping out with an app that can let customers scan their native park after which begin utilizing that house as a stage, Wolf stated. However DreamPark itself will create partnerships with a few of the finest locations itself and get permission to do the sport on the properties.
At Two-Bit Circus, as an example, DreamPark might lengthen the leisure into the out of doors car parking zone, giving extra sq. footage for leisure.
Bushnell had a fantastic second when he was taking part in an AR sport with drift racing on a racetrack within the Two-Bit Circus car parking zone. He famous that combined actuality doesn’t have the Achilles Heel of VR, which is that it makes half the individuals nauseous.
“That was actually the second that broke my mind for combined actuality,” he stated. “We had been on precise drift bikes, pedaling round gathering cash. And I went twice round that factor, chasing after someone else on a drift bike. And, , my coronary heart charge was at 150. And I used to be simply completely going bananas. And I took the headset off, and all that world that had motivated me to pedal my ass off was gone. It simply actually felt like this isn’t simply going to alter leisure. That is going to alter remedy and health and studying.”
Bushnell stated so many other forms of leisure are primarily based on deploying big quantities of capital. However this sort of theme park may very well be up and working in a matter of minutes. Bushnell believes individuals shall be blissful to purchase tickets to get an opportunity to play. He stated his four-year-old child loves it, as does his 82-year-old father.
To me, it felt a bit like the start of the world of Cyberpunk 2077, whereas Bushnell stated it reminded him of the Korean drama, The Recollections of Alhambra, the place individuals put on contact lenss shows and have an journey overlaid on actual streets.
“These are stunning locations naturally. Let’s increase them with just a little extra cool storytelling, and also you’re off and working,” Bushnell stated. “The world is lonely and remoted, We consider this a path to being social once more, getting individuals out in public. And we need to invite landlords of all stripes to host DreamParks.”
