Home grown gaming start-up, Microgravity, has been appointed by the Mayor’s Office of London to system an augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) gaming arena in the city.

Rahul Bhattacharya, managing director, Microgravity says, “the deal is expected to be finalised in the next fortnight. We have received an expression of interest from a London-based fund to set up a gaming hub similar to our offering in Gurugram, Haryana in London. We are raising 1.5 million with a London-based real estate investment trust (REIT) for this project.”

“The business and economy wing of the London mayor's office contacted us, and appointed London & Partners to help us find the right location and funds for setting up the facility,” Bhattacharya adds.

London & Partners is a non-profit public-private partnership company that was backed by erstwhile London mayor Boris Johnson in 2011, and works to foray promotional partnerships to drive jobs and economic growth in the city.

Bhattacharya says that Microgravity is working on a facility starting this month, and the facility is expected to become operational in London this year.

Smaaash, has also pivoted to offer some elements of AR/VR experiences in its centres spread across India.

Parineeta Rajgarhia says, “Zero latency revenues from the global VR gaming market stood at $12 billion in 2019. This could rise by 30 percent in the next five years, and Asia-Pacific would account for 40 per cent of the world’s VR gaming demand.”

Microgravity provides physical AR/VR gaming arenas and has an outlet in Gurugram. It is, however, not the only one. Australian upstart Zero Latency VR operates an AR/VR gaming hub of the same name in Mumbai suburbs, offering a VR shootout arena where up to eight players can play simultaneously among other games. Zero latency operates in Mumbai through partnership with Indian entrepreneur Parineeta Rajgarhia.