Virtual reality outfit Bigscreen raises $11M to expand social app

Virtual reality studio Bigscreen has secured $11 million in Series A financing to make new hires and accelerate the development of its social platform. 

The round was led by venture capital outfit True Venture, and takes the company's total funding for the year to $14 million. 

For those unfamiliar with the company, Bigscreen is the developer behind the aptly named Bigscreen social virtual desktop app for Vive and Oculus Rift. 

The free app (currently in beta) lets users hang out in virtual theatres and other digital spaces where they can do things like play games, work, and watch movies together. Bigscreen hopes the latest cash injection will help it cope with the app's rapid expansion. 

"Over the past year, Bigscreen has grown significantly to more than a quarter million users. In just the past few months our core metrics grew over 300 percent," reads the Bigscreen blog.

"Our power users spend 20 to 30 hours using Bigscreen every week, and many users have spent more than 1,000 hours in Bigscreen.

"Based on usage and user reviews, Bigscreen is now one of the most popular VR apps in the world. We now need to grow the team in order to improve the product and expand the Bigscreen platform to more VR and AR devices."