One of the things that has defined the maturity of the Portland startup community has been a notable lack of serial founders, folks who have had the experience of building and exiting from a company who then take the opportunity to build their next company. Slowly but surely, that’s starting to change. Take, for example, Portland startup Streem.
The new mobile Augmented Reality company is the brainchild of local — now serial — founder, Ryan Fink, whom you may recognize as the cofounder of OnTheGo Platforms, a gesture recognition platform that raised money from Foundry Group before being acquired by Atheer.
So what’s Streem do? Well, according to Forbes, it’s using AR to tap into a $400 billion market:
Streem is getting a jump on the AR market in a big way: the company estimates home services to be a $400 billion industry. With the launch of this app, virtual “visits” from home service professionals are more like something out of your favorite sci-fi show. Using a mobile device as a bionic handyman–part interface, part diagnostic assistant–users of Streem can show home service professionals the leaky sink or deck that needs refinishing and receive initial live quotes and support without the hassle of scheduling a home visit.
What’s more, this marks yet another foray into the world of VR/AR for Portland startups. And that’s quickly moving from being an amazing local collection of hobbyists and creative exploration to a viable cluster of business activity with the likes of dot dot dash, Object Theory, Torch 3D, WILD, and others finding viable business models to pursue.
For more information, visit Streem or read write-ups by Digital Trends and the Portland Business Journal.
