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Virtuix considering individual investors

When it comes to investing in early-stage companies, you’re either “friends and family,” an angel investor accredited with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or a venture capitalist. In the past, average people have been shut out of the process because such investments, while potentially extremely lucrative, are also extremely risky.

Last year, however, the SEC approved new rules [1] making it easier for individual investors to buy stock in emerging companies.

Creator  Jan Goetgeluk demonstrates the treadmill, playing a first-person shooter with an Oculus Rift. [2]
Creator Jan Goetgeluk demonstrates the treadmill, playing a first-person shooter with an Oculus Rift.

Now Virtuix, maker of the Virtuix Omni omnidirectional treadmill, is dipping its toes into this potential new pool of investors.

Jan Goetgeluk [3]
Jan Goetgeluk

“We have launched a ‘Testing-The-Waters’ campaign on SeedInvest [4] to collect non-binding indications of interest from potential investors,” Virtuix CEO Jan Goetgeluk said in an announcement today [5].

Virtuix has already had a successful $1.1 million Kickstarter campaign [6], and subsequently raised an additional $8 million from private investors and venture capitalists. The company has grown to a team of 31 people, and have begun shipping the over 4,000 Omnis that have been ordered so far.

“Thanks to new regulations, for the first time you now may have the chance to invest in virtual reality companies alongside Silicon Valley venture capitalists and global institutional investors,” said Goetgeluk.

He added that the company’s ultimate vision is to have an Omni be the standard treadmill both for home users who want active virtual reality, and for virtual arcades and other types of out-of-home entertainment, and also for training simulations and virtual tourism.

“If Virtuix ever makes it big thanks to your support, we believe you should have the opportunity to share in its success,” he told the company’s Kickstarter backers.