Jaunt, the company building the world's first cinematic VR experience, today announced $6.8 million in venture funding from top investors, including Redpoint Ventures, Peter Gotcher, Blake Krikorian, SV Angel and British Sky Broadcasting (Sky), the UK and Ireland's leading pay TV and home communications company. Jaunt also unveiled its revolutionary virtual reality technology for the first time. Jaunt uses advanced computational photography to enable the power of immersive VR to be applied to live-action content to create the future of entertainment. As a part of the funding round, Tim Haley, partner at Redpoint Ventures, Peter Gotcher, Chairman of Dolby and DigiDesign Founder, and Stuart Murphy, Director of Entertainment at Sky, will join Jaunt's board of directors.

Jaunt™ cinematic VR allows consumers to step into their entertainment like never before. It provides a completely immersive, 360-degree 3D video and audio experience for viewers, allowing them to see and hear BMX bikers zoom past them, watch as battles rage all around them or transport them on amazing trips to exotic locations around the world. In the Jaunt™ experience, viewers take complete control, with the ability to look around in any direction. Wrap-around sight and sound produces a convincing sense of 'being there.' Thanks to the efforts of a dedicated community of developers, true VR is finally here. Significant VC funding, the recent emergence of new entrants into the space such as Sony's Project Morpheus, and Facebook's recent acquisition of Oculus all serve as proof points that VR is real and is happening sooner than anyone imagined.

'VR as it exists today is mainly about video games. We want to broaden the VR experience to mainstream entertainment,' said Jens Christensen, CEO of Jaunt. 'Jaunt has built the technology to put virtual reality in the hands of the best content creators in the world to deliver stunning, reach-out-and-touch-it entertainment experiences using VR goggles.'

Jaunt uses advanced algorithms and computational photography to provide the necessary creative palette, including hardware, software, tools, and applications. This enables directors and videographers to create cinematic VR experiences using the same editing and production software they're already familiar with today.

'Jaunt provides an end-to-end solution for producing cinema-quality experiences that are simply unforgettable,' said Arthur van Hoff, CTO of Jaunt. 'Our cross-platform viewer allows for playback on many devices and provides an accurate, extremely realistic presentation of the visual and sonic content of the scene in all directions.'

'Bringing virtual reality to the wide entertainment market is a daunting proposition, but I believe the team that Jaunt has assembled is capable of doing exactly that, and doing it in a way that will make your jaw drop when you experience it,' said Tim Haley, partner at Redpoint Ventures. 'The virtual reality market is just beginning to pick up speed but you can already see how seriously people are taking it and the potential it really has.'

'Our customers tell us they love having the richest and most immersive TV experience possible, which is why we are so excited about the supporting Jaunt and its ground-breaking video capture technology. As an innovative content creator, cinematic VR represents exactly the type of technology we want to better understand and explore.' said Stuart Murphy, Director of Entertainment Channels at Sky.

'Cinematic VR will completely change the way we experience content in the future,' said Blake Krikorian, Founder id8 Holdings. 'Jaunt is giving content creators - both large and small - all the tools they need to add another dimension to film and video and create experiences that will dazzle viewers. Cinematic VR represents a new art form and I could not be more excited to be working with the team that is making this incredible leap forward a reality.'

In addition to Jaunt's board of directors, Jaunt is supported by an impressive team of advisors including Babak Parviz, creator of Google Glass, Brad Wechsler, Chairman of IMAX, award-winning director Mark Romanek and Bernd Girod, Professor Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, amongst others.

About Jaunt

Jaunt is bringing the necessary creative palette (hardware, software, tools, and applications) to enable cinematic VR and put the power of virtual reality in the hands of today's best content creators. Jaunt's proprietary algorithms for complex computational photography allow content producers to create incredible cinematic VR experiences using existing production software. The company's investors include Redpoint Ventures, Peter Gotcher, British Sky Broadcasting (sky.com/corporate) and Blake Krikorian. Experience more at www.jauntvr.com.