SeedBlink Blog

Krasimir Nikolov is the CEO & Co-founder of QuarkXR, a Bulgarian SaaS startup transforming how people work with the use of XR (Augmented & Virtual Reality). He conducted a Master's in AI, followed by 10 years experience in developing Enterprise and Cloud applications. Krasimir started working in the XR industry since 2014 when he co-created Intugame - an app which enabled you to play PC games in VR on a cheap phone.

Hi Krasi, you are the founder and CEO of QuarkXR today, but we are curious about your background. What experiences led you to become a tech startup entrepreneur?

As a software engineer, I have always strived to solve the toughest problems by leveraging technology and approaching challenges with first-principles thinking. My goal was to work on products where technology was ubiquitous. I also worked on some large enterprise projects in banking and healthcare where I learned a lot about technology at scale. When I dove into the world of AR /VR in late 2013, early 2014, I was convinced that it was the future of computing and that this transformative medium would make interacting with technology much more human. That's why I immediately focused on AR /VR or XR, as it's called today. Also, as an early industry, I saw a lot of scalability issues where my experience would be useful.

Is that how you envisioned it? What's the biggest lesson you have learned since becoming the founder of QuarkXR? Did you have to revise your original idea?

Our biggest lesson was that assumptions you make, no matter how logical, never quite match reality. That's why startups need to iterate and get feedback from the market as quickly as possible. When we started working on QuarkXR, we initially thought the biggest potential of the XR technology was in gaming. However, we quickly realized that XR will change the way people work and interact, and we wanted to be part of that journey.

What problem does QuarkXR solve and how would you say it alleviates your customers' problems?

QuarkXR enables enterprise applications on mobile XR devices. Our cloud streaming technology allows customers to perform tasks that are otherwise impossible on mobile XR devices like the Meta Quest. These tasks include working with large 3D models, complex virtual environments, architectural visualizations, or multi-user applications with hundreds of simultaneous users. Without QuarkXR, the Meta Quest cannot be used effectively for complex business workflows and is instead limited to non-interactive experiences with low fidelity.

What's happening in the industry you are in? What are the key trends?

The use of XR in enterprises is growing quite rapidly. There are already organizations using 50-60,000 headsets each. You can find more information on this topic on our campaign page. Hardware adoption in general is growing very quickly. The Meta Quest 2, a device launched just a year ago, has already sold over 15 million units. Qualcomm expects over 10 million devices with its brand new platform - Snapdragon Spaces - next year. At the high-end, there are devices like the Meta Quest Pro that push the boundaries with technologies like face and eye recognition. With the right technology like QuarkXR, you can already create incredible experiences that are indistinguishable from reality!

Who have you signed as customers so far and what is your biggest challenge in scaling?

We are fortunate to have about 10 customers who are using QuarkXR commercially. A shining example is SynthesisVR, with whom we have deployed QuarkXR in over 400 arcades worldwide! With this one use case alone, tens of thousands of people have used QuarkXR. We are also using QuarkXR with several telecom companies in Europe, some large industrial companies, and on a smaller scale with companies like TUI (which we expect to grow rapidly in the future) and some architecture firms. Unfortunately, we can not reveal too many details about some of our customers. What we can say at the moment is that the main use cases are remote work and collaboration, virtual training, virtual showrooms and design.

In terms of challenges, we need to be able to bring on board larger and larger customers with tens of thousands of users. When we talk to big corporations, they already have at least a couple of XR use cases and the conversation is not about what do I need QuarkXR for, but rather, how can I use QuarkXR across my entire organization? We have seen this topic come up in companies like Bosch, Deutsche Bahn, Siemens, etc.

How did you come to address the industries you currently serve?

Industries like telecommunications, manufacturing, automotive and architecture were very early adopters of XR technology. We did not have to make any effort to convince them of the idea of using XR. Instead, as mentioned earlier, we had to worry about scalability and common enterprise features such as content, user and device management, authentication, DRM, ease of management by IT departments, etc. Through the use of cloud technologies and our numerous partnerships with companies such as SynthesisVR, NVIDIA, HTC, Pico, Meta, to name a few, we are now able to deploy XR at scale.

In your opinion, what qualities are essential in the XR sector to be successful?

First and foremost, we need great content! XR can provide a magical experience if the content is properly developed. This is also where technologies like QuarkXR are very useful: by using the cloud, we can achieve the highest fidelity possible. We also need more XR developers in general - much of the current workflow will eventually move from 2D screens to XR, but many applications are not yet developed. Right now, engineers and architects create on 2D monitors and then experience the content on XR, but in the future, the creation process should happen entirely on XR. This also applies to art and cinema. This will save companies a lot of time and money.

Who are your competitors and how are you different from them?

QuarkXR's unique approach is that we make it very easy for content developers to get into our platform, and we are also a completely agnostic and open platform. There are companies like Holo-Light and GridRaster that also try to provide a great experience, but force developers to integrate a specific SDK or are limited to a specific engine like Unity. Our approach allows us to drive the most innovation by working with everyone.

Another important point about our agnostic approach is that it makes us interesting to all infrastructure players. At this point we are bragging a little, but everyone from NVIDIA to Intel, Qualcomm, DT, Ericsson, Orange, etc., wants to work with us. That's because we have made onboarding so effortless and our architecture makes supporting new hardware very easy. This makes QuarkXR very attractive to new entrants.

What makes QuarkXR so special? Why should investors choose you?

This is somewhat related to the previous question, but essentially it boils down to the fact that we have the best product on the market, the best strategy and philosophy of openness, friendliness to third-party developers, and most importantly, a very good understanding of our end user - the enterprise. When brands like Ericsson, DT, Orange, Bosch and TUI choose to work with us, we hope that it will bring a great level of trust to the company.

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QuarkXR is raising a Late-Seed round through an equity instrument to streamline streamlines Extended Reality technology use for enterprises.