Startups and sales teams know how hard it can be to make an interesting pitch with slideshows and charts, and every convention expo is full of neglected booths that try to lure people with the promise of koozies and flashing lanyards. Seattle-based startup Pixvana Inc. believes that virtual reality holds the solution to these problems, and today the company announced that it has raised $14 million for its mixed-reality publishing platform Spin Studio after making its pitch in VR.

The funding round was led by Vulcan Capital and included participation from new investors Raine Ventures, Microsoft Ventures, Cisco Investments and Hearst Ventures, as well as existing investor Madrona Venture Group. Pixvana’s total funding to date is $20 million.

Pixvana’s Spin Studio is a cloud-based, cross-platform publishing suite for VR, augmented reality and mixed reality, which the company collectively calls XR for “extended reality.” The studio has tools that allow users to publish and play immersive media experiences on all of the top VR devices, including mobile VR devices like Samsung Gear VR and PC devices like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

Spin Studio uses a built-in encoder that can render 8K stereo content, and the platform makes it easy for users to upload their XR assets to the Amazon AWS S3 cloud storage for project collaboration and file backups. Pixvana has plans to release more features for Spin Studio by the end of the year, including the ability to storyboard XR experiences and to easily stitch media files together to quickly create VR clips.

Pixvana demonstrated its faith in its platform by making its pitch to potential investors using a VR presentation created with Spin Studio. The pitch video, which Pixvana called “Sofia” after film director Sofia Coppola, introduced the Pixvana team, explained the meaning of XR and demonstrated the potential of the technology in different settings, including a sporting event, a ballet performance, a corporate keynote and more.

On its website, Pixvana says that it believes wholeheartedly that XR is “the storytelling medium of the future,” and Chief Executive Forest Key said he believes that future is getting closer every day.

“Faster iteration and blending of video and 3D content will allow creatives, brands and media companies to create amazing XR experiences,” Key said in a statement. “More announcements like the recent devices for Windows MR and Oculus Go will create a rapidly expanding market for XR video experiences.”

Pixvana is one of several VR content software startups to get funding this year. Others include Zappar Ltd., which raised $3.75 million in February for its mobile-focused publisher, and Immersv Inc., which raised $10.5 million in August for its VR advertisement publisher. There are also several startups looking to fill special niches for VR content, such as Torch 3D Inc., which raised $3.5 million for a platform that lets companies prototype 3D designs in VR.

You can watch a shortened public version of Pixvana’s VR pitch below:

Photos: Pixvana