Los Angeles-based “experiential” entertainment company Two Bit Circus raised $6.5 million in Series A funding to grow “into a national brand; develop original content for VR, mobile and web” and “ramp up its business renting high-tech entertainment to conferences and events.” The investment comes ahead of the company’s STEAM Carnival this weekend in San Francisco.
Two Bit Circus tinkers with an assortment of immersive technologies for entertainment experiences ranging from public installations to 360 video. The company recently announced a partnership with Dave & Busters to bring a “Story Room” to the Milpitas, California location early next year. That’s the same Dave & Busters location that launched a wireless VRcade earlier this year. Two Bit Circus recently announced a system for Gear VR that allowed multiple headsets in the same room to be synced up with one another, which could be useful to efficiently and simultaneously show an app to a large number of people.
This week, from Nov. 6 to 8, the company is kicking off the Steam Carnival in San Francisco at Pier 48.
In a post outlining why Techstars Ventures co-led the investment round in Two Bit Circus, managing partner Mark Solon explained why he thinks the company is set to redefine the circus in the same way Cirque du Soleil did decades ago.
From the post:
…It’s been more than thirty years since the Circus was disrupted. This summer, we met a couple of remarkable entrepreneurs who figure it’s time to change that. The moment we met Brent Bushnell and Eric Gradman, we knew instantly that we wanted to be a part of what they were up to and last week we co-led a $6.5M Series A investment (along with our friends at Foundry Group) in Two Bit Circus, the circus of the future.
Intel Capital, which just invested in Body Labs, also participated in the round.
