The charge of India’s AR/VR brigade

In February 2022, mere months after Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would rebrand to Meta, the company’s stock shed over a quarter of its value. The plunge was the result of stagnant user numbers as the company announced that the metaverse—a digital world users could navigate using 3D avatars—was its foremost priority.

Even as Meta’s new focus failed to enthuse investors, Kavita Jha found her job easier than ever. “My big moment of excitement is when we show our product to company heads. The next call is on pricing negotiation. My sales cycle was never this short,” says Jha. KiksAR, her third venture, helps companies provide customers with the ability to virtually try on their products in a 3D environment.

The five-year-old company, which claims it will close the year ending March 2023 with revenues of $1.1 million, says it is the leader in providing virtual try-ons for eyewear in India. It counts the likes of Titan Eyeplus, Fastrack, Vision Express, and GKB Opticals among its 75 clients. It also extends this capability to shoe and jewellery try-ons for the likes of Bata and Diamond Direct, respectively. 

Jha, like others in the field, is excited about the future. She sees her company as a digital supply chain for the eventual metaverse, solving real world use cases. This is a welcome addition to Meta’s metaverse. For instance, the app store of Meta’s virtual reality (VR) headset Oculus—one of the pillars of its metaverse—is largely filled with games.

If the metaverse is to be a success, the likes of KiksAR will be crucial to its fortunes. Much like Google did with its Android operating system, Facebook is building the metaverse platform to allow for smaller players to build apps atop it.