The Wild Acquires IrisVR Prospect

The Wild and IrisVR join forces to redefine the future of collaboration and work in the AEC industry.

Virtual and augmented reality in the AEC industry will get a boost by the merger between The Wild and IrisVR. (Image credit IrisVR).

Virtual and augmented reality in the AEC industry will get a boost by the merger between The Wild and IrisVR. (Image credit IrisVR).

Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) collaboration platform The Wild has acquired Prospect, the flagship VR platform from IrisVR. This acquisition will expand The Wild’s VR collaboration suite with IrisVR’s software for design review and coordination. Working as a single unit, The Wild and Prospect hope to create a singular, immersive collaboration platform for AEC teams.

The Wild was founded in 2017 and provides AEC firms with real-time virtual and AR environments with integrations from SketchUp, Revit and BIM360. IrisVR launched in 2014 and was the first VR software targeted for architects and engineers. IrisVR’s headset also integrates with the same key 3D-modeling tools as The Wild, making this partnership an excellent fit. The result will be a completely immersive virtual workspace with powerful collaboration and communication tools for engineers and architects working on projects all over the world.

AR and VR in AEC

The rise of AR and VR was named as one of the top trends to watch in the AEC industry by Unity Software for 2021. The pandemic has forced an industry that has historically been slow to embrace change and new technologies to do just that. Shifting to remote work has accelerated trends toward digitization of drawings, plans and models, with AR, VR and mixed reality (MR) emerging as key tools to bridge the gap among engineers and contractors who cannot meet in person. Digital environments fueled by these tools improve the design process, making it easy for decisions to be made with real-time 3D modeling and visualizations.

VR and AR are still in the early innings of their rise to widespread adoption in the AEC industry, and every use case for real-time 3D visualizations in the field has not been discovered yet. Growth in the field remains exponential, with big opportunities for companies that are early into the space to establish themselves as star players. One of the best ways to fuel growth in these early stages of VR/AR adoption is for pioneers to join forces through the mergers and acquisitions route, as The Wild and IrisVR demonstrated last week.

A New Chapter for VR

Shane Scranton, IrisVR co-founder and CEO, views the marriage with The Wild as bullish for the future of virtual reality in the AEC industry.

“VR is entering a new chapter with lighter, more accessible hardware and customers that are beginning to deploy enterprise VR at scale,” Scranton said. “By joining forces with The Wild, our products will continue to help teams catch errors earlier and make decisions faster, while also building toward a future of deeper integrations and broader hardware support within The Wild’s ecosystem.”

Remote work has no doubt been one of the defining trends and shifts driven by the pandemic, and engineering firms that lean into the movement, rather than resist their employees’ desire to continue working from home or different regions of the country, will be able to attract and retain the best talent. Gabe Paez, The Wild CEO, knows this.

“We intend to dramatically expand what is possible in The Wild and joining forces with IrisVR is a huge leap forward to empower more teams to experience their work together in virtual reality,” he said.

VR and AR will redefine the nature of work in the AEC industry, allowing remote teams to immerse themselves in design as if they were sitting in the same room with powerful 3D modeling and visualizations. Design flaws will be caught earlier, construction issues addressed in the field in real-time without travel and work-life balance will improve as more engineers take advantage of the freedom to work or live anywhere. The possibilities are endless, especially with companies like The Wild and IrisVR teaming to improve their offerings and capabilities.