$8M bet that VR will soon be a normal part of your office life

With Spatial AR, board meetings can now happen on the ether and pants aren’t necessary — no promises about the pants.

When Sir Isaac Newton came up with that whole “3rd Law” thing, I highly doubt he could see the ways it could be applied to life. Augmented Reality (AR) seems to be one of those intangible examples of equal and opposite reactions. Every stellar AR idea — two words, Kingsman glasses — seems to be accompanied by a not so good idea — AR mechanic, anyone??

Spatial, a self-proclaimed cross-reality (XR) platform, looks to be a tally on the “good idea” side.

Launched in late October with a humble $8 million in seed funding, Spatial’s soothsayers envision the company creating solutions for businesses like Google Hangouts, Zoom, and a plethora of other VR board rooms.

There seems to be a million and one ways to have fun with AR, but Spatial is on the business side of the AR mullet.

Spatial is looking at increasing business accessibility while also looking to keep themselves accessible. It is true that they have a partnership with Microsoft HoloLens, but they say that they are “hardware agnostic.” Increasing their own accessibility, Spatial also has both web and phone apps for everyone who is balling on a budget and doesn’t have access to an AR headset.

Spatial honestly seems pretty user friendly. To use the VR meeting tool, you would scan your current environment. Then, Spatial shares that environment with your cronies — or at least the ones you want to join. When the rest of the group joins the space, you can see and interact with them — well, avatars of them. The coolest part is that while you’re interacting with each other, you can also interact with shared documents, websites, photos or whatever else you or your team deems necessary for the meeting.

While Spatial isn’t exactly mainstream, there are a handful of companies using the new tech. Ford’s incubator (Ford X) is taking the software on a test drive (pun intended) to see whether or not the Ford teams are able to work remotely. Currently, Spatial has a capacity of 15 to 20 people at a time, but Spatial’s long term goal is to reach upwards of hundreds — Can you say virtual Coachella anyone?