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One Fat Sheep founder Rupert Deans secures funding to serve up augmented reality on ‘Plattar’

Rupert Deans, founder of Christchurch digital agency One Fat Sheep has raised over $1.2 million in seed funding for his new start up Plattar, a Melbourne-based augmented reality platform, with News Corp Australia leading the investments charge.

The cloud-based platform will enable brands, publishers and agencies to create, manage and distribute augmented reality content with its two parts; an app builder that comes with customisable templates and a content management system for AR content.

Last week Plattar closed an oversubscribed seed investment round for over NZ$1.2 million, led by News Corp Australia and supported by existing prominent private investors.

News Corp Australia chief technology officer Alisa Bowen said AR was a major component of the new wave of consumer engagement and News Corp was excited to bring the capability to news.

“Working with Rupert, Steve, and the Plattar team on a partnership with REA Group and Ray White in February confirmed the huge potential in the platform, and we will be looking to integrate AR and Plattar across many more of our publications,” she said. 

“This investment is also News Corp Australia’s first ever seed investment, which shows our belief in both the technology and in Plattar.”

Plattar CEO Rupert Deans was overwhelmed by the level of interest in its seed investment and is pleased to welcome News Corp Australia as a strategic partner and investor.

“With my first venture, One Fat Sheep, we saw firsthand the enormous potential that AR has to impact how people learn, play, work, communicate, transact, socialise, and consume content. I established Plattar last year to allow anybody with any skill set to create their own AR experiences, bringing our own ideas to life in 3D. The Plattar business model was spun out of One Fat Sheep, which then incubated the startup.”

He said this round of investment will allow it to accelerate growth through additional investment in product development and marketing activity as part of its ambitious plan to cement Plattar as the world’s leading AR creator

“With my first venture, One Fat Sheep, we saw firsthand the enormous potential that AR has to impact how people learn, play, work, communicate, transact, socialise, and consume content. I established Plattar last year to allow anybody with any skill set to create their own AR experiences, bringing our own ideas to life in 3D. The Plattar business model was spun out of One Fat Sheep, which then incubated the startup.”

Investors are recognising the major role that AR will play in the next wave of consumer engagement. Annual investment in augmented and virtual reality companies is at an all-time high with a record breaking US$1.1 billion already invested into AR and VR companies in 2016, according to a new report issued by Digi-Capital. The same report predicted that: “The augmented reality (AR) market will be a $120 billion industry by 2020″.

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