HBO, Discovery make strategic investment in holographic firm OTOY

HBO, Discovery make strategic investment in holographic firm OTOY

   Michelle Clancy
   | 20 April 2016



Time Warner’s premium channel operation and Discovery Communications have taken an undisclosed equity stake in Otoy, the graphics company.

jon stewartThe firm says it will use the new investment cash to “fuel development and distribution of original holographic content, enabling HBO and Discovery to deliver new entertainment experiences to consumers across TV, mobile, Web, social and emerging wearable technologies such as virtual and augmented reality”.

The news comes after former Daily Show host Jon Stewart announced late last year that he plans to work with Otoy to develop short-form programming for HBO (whose parent company is Time Warner), to be posted on HBO Now throughout the day.

Stewart says, in a release this morning, that it’s “a limitless mind blowing creative platform,” and he dreams to “someday understand how they did it”.

Otoy’s mission is to “make holographic and immersive content a mass market proposition for consumers, artists and publishers alike was,” said founder Jules Urbach. “A key part of this endeavour is unifying production and delivery of content across all possible endpoints, from HTML5, to TV and social, to wearables.”

Other investors include Autodesk and Russian venture capitalist Yuri Milner.