With a Massive Spike in Virtual Reality Training, Immerse Expands US Operations

UK-based company adds new key hires as U.S. organizations better prepare workers to excel

LONDON and BALTIMORE, Feb 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Training via virtual reality has become a serious business these days, especially for UK-based Immerse, a top enterprise VR software leader whose license revenues have skyrocketed more than 300% in just the last 12 months.

The Immerse customer base focuses on enterprise training, including industries with urgent response times, from pharma and life sciences to fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), energy, and more, all who must reskill and upskill for peak performance, especially to meet the more than 1 billion jobs that could be transformed by technology (source, OECD).

The company's growth trajectory is further buoyed by the pandemic, given that teaching can be done remotely, en masse, is visually stimulating and precise, a mere fraction of the cost, and results in 75% higher knowledge retention*. Those being taught in VR also demonstrated 340% more confidence to employ what they learned versus traditional e-learning methods at 10% (source PwC, 2020).

Joining the global team in the U.S. office to focus on expanding its operations include XR tech futurist, Cathy Hackl, as global strategic advisor, and Johnathan Sutherlin, an XR/VR/AR business expert as a business development manager. They will join Bill Finegan, North America executive vice president to accelerate the growth of their global strategic relationships and through its Immerse Platform, empower organizations to revolutionize their employee experiences with boosted engagement, an upskilled workforce, and increased performance and retention.

"I'm delighted to welcome Cathy and Johnathan and see our U.S. team expand to meet rapidly increasing needs, says Tom Symonds, Immerse CEO. "Research reveals that only 14% of major companies are not engaged in the utilisation of VR/AR at some level. These skills will help us meet the need of solutions rising up the priority list for global companies. We look forward to even greater growth in 2021."

Hackl brings a wealth of expertise as a globally recognized tech futurist and business leader in AR, VR and spatial computing. She's worked with some of the biggest names in technology including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Magic Leap and HTC VIVE. She also is one of 2020's 10 most influential women in tech by BigThink, and on LinkedIn's prestigious Thinkers50 Radar list, a management thinker's global ranking. Her passions lie in the importance of reskilling and upskilling, diversity and inclusion.

"I am really excited to join at such a pivotal time for enterprise VR. Major companies and reports show evidence that effective training is key to supercharging workforces and future-proofing businesses," notes Hackl.

Sutherlin is a well-respected industry thought leader with extensive knowledge of VR technology and  with over a decade of leadership strategy and operational achievements, he understands what drives customer engagement. In his previous role with HTC Vive, he helped introduce immersive technologies to organizations across a range of industries, including architecture, engineering, construction, education, training/simulation, entertainment and healthcare.

About Immerse
Immerse is a virtual reality technology company headquartered in London that has developed the Immerse Platform. Built for enterprise from the ground up, the Immerse Platform enables companies to create, scale and measure virtual reality training.

With clients in a wide range of industries such as FMCG, oil and gas, pharma and life science and power and utilities, using the Immerse Platform enables companies to train and assess their employees in radically new ways maximizing human performance and the employee experience.

* Source: The Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Soft Skills Training on the Enterprise PWC, June 2020

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