safeGUARDvr

I love this! I am also very interested in simulation and VR for education. Excellent elevator and venture pitch. Both describe the concept super clearly. Very interesting that all competitors are in US, none in Canada yet – what an ideal market entry point! I can only imagine that demand for this low risk practice environment training for such a high-risk profession will only grow. No surprise that the head-mounted display is the costliest element - the HoloBrain for training medical students that I recently tested was $8000 apiece (and that was AR not VR). It makes a lot of sense in this case to charge subscription fees for covering costs and revenue, as well as for the service of receiving new and up to the minute scenarios, which will help maintain relevancy. Very exciting! Great job.

This venture pitch addresses a niche market, and one that is unmet. All of the aspects of an effective venture pitch are included throughout the presentation, convincing the investor of the meaningfulness, need, and available market of the venture. One area that could be improved upon is on the marketability page. Here, a list is provided of how the requested investment will be used, however, to make it more convincing, offering percentage amounts or a circle graph to visually show the delegation of investment dollars would help justify the investment request. On another note, the market is focusing on Canada, but I'm guessing future endeavours may find SafeGUARDvr extended over to the UK, Australia, and beyond! Great job!

Awesome work and excellent concept! Coming from a family of police officers, I can say that something like this is needed. Your are correct in that learning on the fly isn't the best way to learn (nor is it the safest), so something like this would certainly be a game changer. The scenarios listed on the page are all ones that one could see in an emergency responder scenario and how you compare the program to those offered by colleges is great in terms of experience and dollars. I apologize if I missed it, but what is the price for the program? Is it a site license or based on individual? I ask because depending on the size of a police force (say, OPP vs. North Bay City Police), it could be make or break based on what budget the service has available. As well, if I am a police force wishing to invest, I'd like to know what it will cost not only for startup, but as well if I wish to use this product moving forward. Thanks, Stephen

Hi Tanya, This is a great venture pitch assignment. It included thoughtful design from start to finish and was cleanly presented. As Robert said earlier, I agree that it doesn't necessarily get investors "interested." Education for public sector employees is always seems to be marketed as "non-profit," yet it requires a ton of funding and support financially. As a K-12 teacher, I have seen many teachers attempting to receive professional development training but have fallen short due to "investors" (ministry) seeing the financial benefit to promoting these workshops. This may hold the same and translate to struggles for the police sector as well. I was curious if your venture seeks to replace current training situations or is it a supplement? In my opinion, a full or near-full replacement would be potentially hazardous as real life scenarios using paint balls and other alternate methods provides the police members with some resemblance of "reality" whereas VR may remove the immediate fear and/or danger from the participants. Derek

FEEDBACK: Well done, Tanya. A very polished and professional pitch, and the concept appears to be a shoe-in for commercialization. In fact, I am more than a little surprised it hasn't happened already. A couple of things to suggest: as a potential investor, I might need a little bit of research to help me see that VR is growing as an effective training option in the fields you are presenting. As well, information on product pricing and a description of what exactly the product is would help. Are we talking just software, or hardware and software? You market the immersive simulator, which sounds big and complicated, so do clients purchase this as well, or will you be opening up training facilities to accommodate this hardware? If the latter is the case, then you need to consider purchasing commercial space, and how you are going to offer your product and services nationwide when the customer needs to come to you. -Scott

I think this product would stand a good chance of being successful in the market. Having Canadian centered content and being cheaper than competitors. The elevator pitch doesn't really get investors interested, if I want to make money, there's nothing to convince me that there's a chance that I can. The investor pool receiving 20% equity is probably great, but without forecasts, that could mean that the company expects to take 100 years before the $2 Million is earned back. It would have been nice to see current partnerships made, projections, or any expectations for making money in the short-midterm future. Great product and very well put together.