immersive-experiences
(9)
Sankar Jayaram
Sankar (Jay) Jayaram is the co-founder and CEO of Quintar, a Santa Clara startup building augmented reality experiences for live sports. A former Washington State University engineering professor who founded the school's virtual reality lab in 1994, he co-founded VOKE with his wife Uma Jayaram, sold it to Intel in 2016, and served as CTO of Intel Sports before spinning out Quintar in 2021. Quintar became the official AR developer for the PGA Tour and shipped PGA Tour Vision for Apple Vision Pro.
Figure8
Figure8 is a New York-based, experience-first development company founded by Maryellis Bunn and Manish Vora, the team behind the Museum of Ice Cream. It designs and operates 'experiums' - large-scale immersive, multi-sensory spaces built to draw people offline and into shared, playful, in-person moments. Backed by a $40M Series A at a reported $200M valuation, Figure8 builds and scales its own experiential brands while taking on commissioned activations for outside partners.
Momentum Worldwide
Momentum Worldwide is a global experiential marketing agency headquartered in New York that designs and produces brand experiences - live events, sponsorships, activations, retail moments and immersive campaigns - for some of the world's largest brands, including American Express, Coca-Cola, Microsoft and AT&T. Founded in 1987 and long part of the Interpublic Group network (now under Omnicom following IPG's 2025 acquisition), it employs roughly 1,300-2,000 people across offices worldwide and has been named a US experiential agency of the year multiple times.
Quintar, Inc.
Quintar is a Santa Clara-based extended reality company building a device-agnostic spatial XR platform that turns physical venues into digitally enhanced 'Quintar Places.' Its patented Q.reality platform combines a Spatial Visual Positioning System with True Spatial Video to overlay real-time, data-driven content on live sports and other events. Quintar is the official mobile AR and XR developer of the PGA TOUR and built PGA TOUR Vision, the first professional golf application for Apple Vision Pro. Founded in 2021 by former Intel CTO Dr. Sankar (Jay) Jayaram and Dr. Jeff Jonas, the company has raised roughly $11 million, including an $8.2 million Series A in 2024.
Callaway Digital Arts
Callaway Digital Arts - operating today as Callaway Arts & Entertainment - is a New York media and publishing house founded by Nicholas Callaway that designs and produces museum-quality illustrated books, luxury limited editions, award-winning children's apps, and immersive cultural experiences. The company is known for landmark titles including Madonna's Sex, The Beatles: Get Back, Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine, and a three-volume Sistine Chapel edition shot in gigapixel detail with the Vatican Museums.
Museum of Ice Cream
Museum of Ice Cream is an immersive, multi-sensory entertainment brand that turns the simple pleasure of ice cream into a walk-through playground of color, nostalgia, and unlimited treats. Born as a 2016 New York pop-up built around a now-iconic sprinkle pool, it grew into a chain of permanent 'experiums' across the U.S. and Singapore under parent company Figure8, blending hospitality, retail, and shareable social moments into one ticketed experience.
Manish Vora
Manish Vora is the co-founder and co-CEO of Museum of Ice Cream, the candy-colored immersive attraction that turned a 2016 self-funded pop-up in New York's Meatpacking District into a global chain of 'experiums' with locations across the US and Singapore. A former Citigroup investment banker turned art-and-experience entrepreneur, he previously co-founded the contemporary art platform GREY AREA and ran the experience-tech venue Lightbox before partnering with Maryellis Bunn. He now co-leads Figure8, the experience-first development company that is the parent of Museum of Ice Cream and raised a $40M Series A in 2019 at a $200M valuation.
Roblox
Roblox is an online platform and game-creation system where users build, publish, and play 3D experiences made by other users. Rather than producing its own games, Roblox provides the engine (Roblox Studio), hosting, social layer, and a virtual currency (Robux) that lets a global community of creators turn ideas into playable worlds - and, increasingly, into income. With roughly 132 million daily active users and more than $1 billion paid out to creators in a single year, it has become one of the largest user-generated entertainment platforms in the world.
Malhar Patil
Malhar Patil is the Co-Founder and COO of Flam, a San Francisco- and Bengaluru-based AI-native mixed reality platform that lets brands deliver immersive, app-less 3D experiences via QR codes and links — powering campaigns for Google, Samsung, Emirates, and even Kamala Harris's US presidential run. A BITS Pilani chemical engineering graduate and Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 honoree (2022), Malhar pivoted from consulting (Oracle) and sports-wellness management (Stepathlon) to build one of India's most globally ambitious adtech startups, raising $22M in total funding including a $14M Series A led by RTP Global in May 2025.