Colorado’s newest startup incubator recently opened its doors on the campus of the state’s oldest public institution of higher learning.
How 3MERA is Shaping the Future of Browser-Based Augmented Reality
John Himes
November 21, 2023
“Scan me! Scan me!” a neighbor’s kid excitedly yells as you open your car door, getting home from work. They point to a profile of a large dragon on their shirt and beckon you over.
Intrigued, you walk over and notice that the dragon graphic is made up of interlocking QR codes of different sizes.
You pull out your phone and point it at their shirt—and out flies a dragon. Looking through your phone’s camera as if it were a lens into an alternate world, you see the dragon breathe fire before it settles down at your feet.
This is just one example of the extended reality (XR) tech that the 3MERA is developing in Denver, Colorado. The company’s founders realized that augmented reality (AR) could be a bridge between the physical and the digital, and they wanted to make that connection even more immediate.
So they created a unique XR code system that creates a single, scannable graphic out of multiple instances of one code, and they developed a way to serve bite-sized pieces of AR content to anyone who scans that graphic.
Now they’re building a platform that can help brands build AR interactions that translate to immersive customer experiences. They’ve made it easy and accessible for anyone to seamlessly integrate the physical and digital.
While their go-to-market strategy centers around unlocking the creativity of marketing teams, their vision goes beyond providing a new way for brands to engage with their customers.
Their goal is to provide a new way for people to connect with each other in real life (IRL). “Our tech evokes a new sense of imagination and possibility,” says CEO and founder Schuyler Van Sickle. “We’re making commerce an experience by making it easy for anyone to build with AR.”
This is the story of how an innovative company is tapping into the Colorado tech ecosystem to do something that’s never been done before.
Your grandad’s metaverse: Tech with multigenerational appeal
“So you’re telling me that I can put this QR Code on anything? And I can bring up whatever picture I want?”
This question from Van Sickle’s father is what really got his curiosity going.
After discovering that he could launch AR with QR codes, Van Sickle printed out a QR code on a piece of paper, and that code brought up the Mona Lisa. He held it up in front of his chest and had his dad scan it with his phone. When the Mona Lisa popped up in AR, his dad was blown away.
But instead of commenting on the art, his dad’s mind immediately made the jump that would lead to 3MERA. He assumed he had scanned the prototype of an AR T-shirt and said he wanted one to send to Van Sickle’s siblings that would bring up a photograph in memory of their deceased mother.
Before now the thought of an AR T-shirt hadn’t even crossed Van Sickle’s mind. He realized they were onto something. His father, a man over 65, wasn’t necessarily the most tech-savvy guy, but he instantly got this tech, and he loved it.
As the company has grown their business over the past two years, they’ve seen the same story play out over and over again. Older folks get it, and they love to buy XR T-shirts for the kids in their lives.
In the process, 3MERA found themselves tapping into a larger trend.
In a New York Times article about the tech industry’s unwillingness to build technology for older generations, Farhad Manjoo writes, “Zuckerberg has struggled to get people to hop into the metaverse, his virtual reality world; perhaps he’d have more luck if he designed the digital wonderland for older people.”
Meta’s oversight is 3MERA’s opportunity. “The thing about the metaverse is that nobody knows what it means,” explains Van Sickle. “So that leaves us with plenty of room to define it and show people that metaverse experiences can be very meaningful.”
The basic premise is combining our digital and physical lives. But whereas Zuckerberg applies a “build it and they will come” philosophy to his virtual reality (VR) platform, Van Sickle imagines a metaverse that comes to you instead. This differentiates his company, grounding them in humanity and reality rather than asking users to plug themselves into a foreign metaverse.
“Meta’s metaverse is pretty unfulfilling,” says Tate Behning, 3MERA’s CMO and cofounder. “We see AR as the opposite: lots of utility, fulfilling experiences, personal expression, and physical connection.”
Start with accessibility
That’s why they’ve taken the opposite approach. They realized that people of all ages love tech when it works for them, when it serves their needs, and when it’s easy to use.
“We wanted to make immersive tech more human-centric, intuitive, and useful,” explains Van Sickle. He sees AR as a key way for people to interact with the internet in the future. It’s more visual, more rooted in space. And, most of all, it doesn’t require anyone to “go” anywhere—the AR metaverse comes to you, IRL.
That all starts with making it easy and accessible for all demographics. “We realized how inaccessible XR was to a lot of people right now,” says Behning. “The idea was intimidating, and they didn’t know how to access it or what they could experience. We saw a disconnect between what was available and people’s perceptions and access to it.”
That’s why their patented XR Code™ technology was optimized for accessibility and recognition. They saw the challenges of trying to scan just one QR code—maybe the user was too close, too far away, at the wrong angle, or in the wrong lighting. This leads to friction, frustration, and, especially for many older people, a negative inward reflection: “I guess I just don’t get this tech. It’s not for me.”
To overcome this challenge, Van Sickle, Behning, and their team created a matrix pattern, called an XR Code, that uses both large and small QR codes to minimize disruption. That means it can be placed on any object, hard or soft, and it can be scanned from different distances, in different ways, and on different devices.
A big switch is that, from the user’s perspective, they’re pointing their phone at a picture, not scanning an XR Code. The experience is pretty much the same as if they were going to take a photo. It’s a subtle but important distinction that makes the company’s tech more accessible to more people.
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING?
Get more, straight to your inbox.
Building an AR platform for marketers
They built innovative tech. Now they had to figure out the best way to apply it.
Drawing from their roots, they started with customizable T-shirts, but they soon realized they had a problem. People didn’t really know what to do with it.
Their customers had to know what to put on the shirt, and they had to know what AR image they wanted to put behind the XR Code. Not a lot of people wanted to put that much effort into creating a custom shirt. They realized it was too early to build a brand around personalized XR T-shirts.
So they switched gears to a B2B strategy, becoming a platform for marketers to incorporate AR into an immersive campaign.
For instance, one of their first partners was Catalyst, a sustainable kitty litter brand that’s also based out of Colorado. They designed stickers, T-shirts, and AR content that Catalyst’s representatives could use to attract attention at the SuperZoo trade show.
They’d call out to people walking by: “Hey! Want to see how my cat shirt comes to life?” People would be intrigued, stop, and scan the codes to bring up an AR cat that they could walk, feed, and—of course—escort to the litter box to let it do its business.
After that, the Catalyst branding would come up, showing benefits and special discounts. In addition to building brand recognition, Catalyst also benefited from collecting valuable remarketing data.
Catalyst also handed out XR Code stickers that pointed to the AR experience. When conference-goers went home and shared them with their families, they were a big hit with kids and older people alike.
Over the course of building out their platform, the team at 3MERA learned some valuable lessons. They realized they could deliver a brand experience that boosts engagement and recognition. They also figured out that people are more interested in content snacking—small bites of AR—rather than bulky experiences that require large file sizes and long load times.
Finally, they’re working to make their tech even more seamless. “To bring streaming of 3D objects, we need better infrastructure so that we can deliver everything more quickly and reliably, on any device and on any browser,” says Van Sickle.
While that underlying infrastructure remains hidden from view, it’s currently one of the biggest tech challenges the company is working through so they can provide their users with better access.
Innovation in Colorado
3MERA makes the most of Colorado’s robust tech ecosystem.
“The tech industry remains a major driver of Colorado’s economy,” writes Alayna Alvarez for Axios. She reports that “startups in Denver raised nearly $582M in the first quarter” of 2023, a 60% jump from Q1 2019.
The boots on the ground reflect that macroscopic picture. “Colorado has everything you need from a startup ecosystem, way more than you can find in most other places,” says Behning. “When you’re in a dynamic environment, you learn how to build dynamic companies and tools.”
He finds joy in being able to cultivate a business and raise a family here in Colorado. During our interview, he also mentioned his love for mountain biking when discussing how he could envision having AR-enhanced clothing that may one day be able to bring up pictures of his favorite biking trips or brands.
Van Sickle has likewise benefited from being part of the Colorado tech community. “There’s a lot of smart people around that make really great soundboards to push against,” he says. “And that’s exactly what I need.”
He points to Techstars Boulder Accelerator as an example of an organization that’s pushing the ecosystem forward.
In many ways, their story itself is also rooted in the state. The duo first met when working at a startup in Boulder—Van Sickle was Behning’s intern. Years later, they caught back up and formed a partnership that continues to be pivotal.
Now they’re growing the AR tech scene in Colorado and have attracted advisors from California, where AR has been very progressive. This is part of their mission to inspire other technologists on the Front Range to look for ways to innovate with XR.
How long before the ubiquitous mountain-graphic baseball caps have XR Code experiences that point to your favorite craft brewery? Hopefully soon! Now that’s Colorado tech in action.
About the Colorado Tech Spotlight
The Colorado Tech Spotlight highlights local innovations and the stories behind them. The series explores how the Colorado tech ecosystem creates an environment that promotes technological progress.
It is produced by Dynamic Tech Media and written by John Himes.
Colorado Tech Insider
Stay up-to-date on the latest innovations and the stories behind them
Related Posts
Did you know that most black ink comes from fossil fuels? Living Ink is changing that by creating sustainable pigment out of algae.
Imagine a place where a physician can see patients in the morning, teach a class in the afternoon, go to the lab to check in on their research, then finish their day at their startup’s office—all without ever having to get in the car.