Future Sight AR is Now Dauntless
Hi There,
It’s been a while since we update our community and with all the changes happening we decided it was past due to announce our rebrand to Dauntless and start a newsletter (and a video update and maybe podcast).
The TL;DR: we pivoted, rebranded, took on a stealth mode product (which we said we’d never do) and are really excited for 2023.
Rebrand: Since spinning up the company in 2018 we’ve gone through a pivot (more on that below), expanded our team and taken on a new product line. In late 2022, on the other side of these changes, we realized that the company was no long “Future Sight AR” but something new. So we changed our name to Dauntless XR and renamed the products in our portfolio to match our new mission and vision.
Pivoting: The pandemic disrupted our usual circuit of conferences, pitches and panels in the best way. We ended up talking to more people, specifically pilots and maintainers in the US Air Force. We discovered a pressing need for solutions like Katana, our flagship app, and a solid user base that is already familiar with XR technology in the form of simulators and heads up displays. So we refocused our attention on getting Katana to those customers first with the help of AFWERX and the SBIR program. AFWERX served as a launchpad that opened up new markets for us in aerospace, business aviation and commercial aviation.
We still serve construction, manufacturing and energy sector customers, but understand that outside of early commercial adopters that market is not going to be a first mover in XR. And that’s okay, we’re not going anywhere and will be here when they’re ready. As a bootstrapped startup we need to focus on markets that are first movers, and for us that is aviation, aerospace, and defense.
Stealth Mode: During our initial contracts we had the opportunity to work on a second product, related to Katana’s XR workflows, but not similar enough to live in the Katana Ecosystem. That is our sort-of-stealth-mode project and while we can’t say much now, we can give you a name: Aura. Aura will be out later in 2023 and you can read a little bit about it on the new website.
Team: We have also expanded the team. You probably met co-founders Sofia Lazaro and Lori-Lee Elliott at events, accelerators, pitch competitions or somewhere in between. Back in 2019 we brought on James Irei, and he now serves as our CTO. With James onboard we have grown the development teams supporting our apps.
As newcomers to the aviation and defense we have had the warmest welcome and can’t wait to share more of what we are building. You can get updates by following our LinkedIn page, subscribing to our newsletter by email, and through YouTube.
Sincerely,
The Dauntless XR Team
