CHENNAI: Dropping out of college need not necessarily be a fiasco. At least, not if you have a dream and the resilience to work towards it. Bengaluru-based startup Absentia is the tale of three engineering students from BITS Pilani, Goa who dropped out in their final year and set out on a virtual reality and gaming adventure.
When Vrushali Prasade and her friends Shubham Mishra and Harikrishna Valiyath, quit college to start their virtual reality and gaming venture in 2015, they had no clue about running a business or managing the finances of it. Armed only with their passion to create something new in the field of virtual reality, they christened their startup ‘Absentia’, to signify the creation of something from nothing.
Vrushali says the trio were working together on projects since college and they developed an interest in gaming and virtual reality in second year of their graduate studies. “We tried to identify the focus areas where we could supplement the gaming industry. We dabbled with the idea of converting 2D content into 3D format,” she adds. She recalls that it was ‘now or never’ for them when they spent their final year approaching investors in various parts of the country, sharing their ideas with them. “The industry was at its peak and we had to take the plunge. That is why we decided to drop out of college and dedicate all our time to develop on the idea.”
They made a mark with the introduction of their first product, a Virtual Reality Headgear called Tessaract, which helps users view 2D images in 3D. Soon, they realised that this would not suffice to sustain in the industry and they needed to widen their horizon. “The first product that we built (VR headgear) was to convert 2D content into 3D. We enhanced our proposition to develop a toolkit where we could reduce the time of game development. So presently we are working on this toolkit. Game developers can now choose from multiple options and then develop on top of it. It will involve animation module, character generation, 3D modelling, texturing and game balancing,” she avers.
The team released the animation module in July this year. While majority of the startups fizzle out or fail to make it through the initial months, co-founders of Absentia have today carved a space for themselves and the team attributes this to its quick decision making power, some good advises and mentors that came its way.
Now, they have more than 10,000 subscribed users apart from a good number of daily active users. A large number of their users are from the US and Brazil. While until now the team has put out its content online for free, they are mulling monetisation of the same.
The numbers say it all
A1.2 crore is the amount Absentia raised in their first round of funding from Astarc Ventures, 50k Ventures, and other individual angel investors.
A8 crore is the amount they raised in a round held by an early stage venture fund earlier this year as well.
They already have 10000 subscribed users besides the daily users