The holding company for Waterford based start-up Immersive VR Education has begun trading on the London and Irish stock markets.
Trading for shares in VR Education Holdings kicked off on the AIM in London and the ESM in Dublin, with the company raising £6 million (€6.7 million) as part of the admissions process placing of 60,000,000 new ordinary shares at 10p each. That gives the company a market capitalisation of £19.3 million (€21.6 million).
The company, which was founded in 2014 by David and Sandra Whelan, uses virtual reality in digital education and corporate training. It said the £6 million would be used to further develop its virtual social learning and presentation platform Engage, fuel its marketing strategy and produce new content.
Engage allows lessons, meetings and presentations to be helf in a virtual, multi-user environment and help trainers create pre-recorded or live content. It will be rolled out later this year.
Among the company's partners are Oxford University, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the BBC.
"The AR/VR market is growing at a fast rate; as hardware becomes more affordable, this growth will undoubtedly gain further traction and we are at the forefront of this," said chief executive David Whelan.
“Having raised £6 million and with the support of our new shareholders, our focus is now on strengthening our network of educational institutions and corporations, which already includes the likes of Oxford University and the BBC, and building our sales team to roll-out and position ENGAGE as the go-to platform of choice for digital education and simulated training globally.
