SEATTLE, Aug. 15, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Valence Group Inc., a digital transformation solution provider focused on helping enterprise customers worldwide understand and apply next-generation technologies in a smart and innovative way, today announced the acquisition of 8ninths Inc., a leading augmented and virtual reality studio. Based in South Lake Union and focused on helping businesses around the world harness the power of augmented and virtual reality, 8ninths will form a cornerstone of the Valence digital transformation business, alongside other digital transformation technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, robotics, voice, and more.
“We are thrilled to welcome the 8ninths team to the Valence family,” said Jim Darrin, President of Valence. “At Valence we focus exclusively on digital transformation technologies and their application to help drive real business results for customers. It is clear to us that forward thinking companies will accelerate their deployment of next-generation experiences using these new platforms like Microsoft HoloLens, Oculus Go, Magic Leap One, and more. The 8ninths team brings us more capacity and expertise to help scale our business, and Valence provides them expertise in other areas to advance their existing customer engagements.”
Founded by Adam Sheppard and William Lai, and focused exclusively on the augmented and virtual reality market for the last four years, 8ninths comes to Valence with a passion and culture of delivering true business value to customers. “As we delivered our solutions to customers, we realized that more and more of them were focused on a much larger mission than just augmented and virtual reality – they were focused on transforming their business entirely,” said Mr. Sheppard, Chief Executive Officer of 8ninths. “Our customers are focused on innovation, on technology exploration and on connecting emerging technologies in new ways to create value for their customers, partners or employees. The opportunity to join Valence and take advantage of a broader set of digital transformation experiences and expertise came at the right time, and we couldn’t be happier.”
The company today also announced that Adam Sheppard and William Lai were awarded an Emmy® in the Outstanding Digital Innovation category for their work on Capturing Everest, a 360-degree virtual reality experience. Working alongside with partners Madison Mountaineering, Panogs, and Endemol Shine Beyond USA, Mr. Sheppard and Mr. Lai were Executive Producers on the groundbreaking VR documentary of a 2016 Everest summit. Using new approaches to 360° storytelling, the team captured the authenticity and intensity of the mountain like never before and was launched in May 2017 on Sports Illustrated’s new LIFE VR platform.
“This is a great milestone for the 8ninths team and adds another successful project to our business,” said Mr. Lai. “We put our heart and soul into creating a next-generation 360-degree virtual reality experience and are thrilled that people from all over found so much value in exploring an Everest summit in such a new and innovative way.”
About Valence Group Inc.
Valence is a digital transformation solution provider focused on helping enterprise customers worldwide understand and apply next-generation technologies in a smart and innovative way to advance their business goals. Across modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, augmented and virtual reality, blockchain and more, Valence has a wide range of innovation and consulting capabilities that deliver forward-thinking, quick-to-market and cost-effective solutions to our customers. Learn more at http://valencelevel.com/.
About 8ninths Inc.
8ninths is a Seattle-based augmented and virtual reality studio that provides platform solutions and services for industries across all vertical industries. Partnering with large enterprise customers, we utilize new technologies to meet business objectives in the most innovative and competitive way. The company actively develops next-generation experiences applications for enterprise clients, partnering with leading software and hardware companies such as Microsoft, Samsung, Oculus, Facebook, HTC, and more. For more information, visit http://www.8ninths.com.
Contact Information
Contact:
Teah Delfino
Marketing Manager
teahd@valencelevel.com