To work, users download the Beem app for iOS or Android and position themselves in the camera's viewfinder either by mounting the phone to capture their full frame or by having a friend record them. With the Beem mobile app, which soft-launched in its latest iteration last month, the goal is to put this sort of live AR - or 3D-like experience, if you prefer - into consumers' hands. This experience allowed Beem to stay afloat while testing and furthering its technology, but the company never intended to be a development studio, says Amstutz - it wanted to deliver a consumer experience. Instead, it developed AR projects and campaigns for brands, businesses and other organizations, including Vogue, Carolina Herrera, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, H&M, Forever 21, Warner Music, LADBible (in partnership with KSI and Craig David), the British Army, TEDx and several others.ĭuring this time, Beem's technology was used to stream an artist's music in AR, deliver a live conference to users' homes in AR, create "virtual catwalks" and create other sorts AR experiences for its clients. The founder put together a team of computer scientists and researchers to work on the concept, which today includes Chief of Product Damian Hickey, previously product head at AR pioneer Blippar and Denis Islamov, co-founder and CTO, whose background is in applied mathematics and physics.Īfter its official founding in 2017, Beem (previously HoloMe) did not fully target the consumer market. "We put a very big emphasis on face-to-face communication," he explains of his alternative childhood environment's lack of modern technology. Beem CEO Janosch Amstutz describes his parents as "hippies" who lived in a small Australian beachside town, Byron Bay, where they raised cows and chickens, used solar power, collected rainwater and didn't even have a telephone - just a two-way radio that the community would share.
Surprisingly, the idea for the startup comes from a founder who grew up without much access to technology.
But using AR for telepresence, as Beem intends, isn't a common use case. What's the next step beyond Zoom calls and FaceTime? How about beaming yourself from one device to another in real time using augmented reality? That's the premise behind a startup called Beem, which is today announcing its first consumer app, $4 million in seed funding and its longer-term plan to become a communications technology for the AR glasses of the future.Ĭonsumers today know AR technology thanks to interactions with Snapchat Lenses and TikTok Effects, through mobile games like Pokémon GO and by visualizing products they're considering buying - like furniture they place in their room, or makeup they virtually try on via an AR filter.