Trezi As A Game Changer In Virtual Reality
We’ve all been force-fed gung-ho platitudes of making our future reality in a world hellbent on doing otherwise. With Trezi, Tithi and Gautum Tewari’s brainchild, SmartVizX takes this notion a step further-developing (quite literally) a viable reality that allows stakeholders in the building and construction industry to collaborate with ease. Trezi has taken the traditionally passive and static design visualization-oriented market by storm-it is hailed as India’s first fully immersive VR project for the building industry. Trezi’s agile cloud-based functionality and virtual collaboration capabilities are supported over both traditional desktop systems and VR headsets. This gives it an undeniable edge over its competitors by making it more accessible and inclusive for the population at large. Trezi helps businesses facilitate greater customer engagement in everyday decision-making, allowing users, architects, designers, consultants, and building product manufacturers to collaborate seamlessly in real-time, making the process both more punctually driven as well as cost-efficient. The SaaS product allows users to explore, review and modify their designs in full scale and color.
The Origins Of SmartVizX
SmartVizX started its humble beginnings as a start-up initiative strong handed by architects Gautum and Tithi Tewari, who had previously held senior leadership positions at some of the largest design firms in the world before SmartVizX. What sets SmartVizX apart from other dewy-eyed start-ups fresh off the block is that it is an initiative backed by 20 years of professional experience: real-time understanding of existing problems within the market and a vast network of connections backed by a solid, dependable reputation. The credibility and networking of the founders enabled the company to procure customer access to productized services at a faster rate than most new startups (2-3 years in advance). As a result, SmartVizX invested in devices at cheaper rates and maximized quality control, allowing the company to expand the boundaries of what VR was capable of in record time. Currently, the team comprises vastly experienced visionaries from the domains of architecture and gaming technologies. They are continually experimenting with pushing the boundaries of exploring unmapped products and spaces through gamification.
Co-Founder and Director of SmartVizX, Tithi Tewari, realized that the communication gap between architects and clients largely stemmed from an unwillingness to explore new technologies. Extensive design renders and 3d walkthroughs still left gaps in client understanding, which gave root to differences in expectations, cost and time overruns, and logistical management issues. Trezi provided a solution to facilitate seamless design collaboration, virtual co-location, and teams and remote working in a more manageable module.
Trying Out Trezi: Avenues Of Opportunity in VR
With the advent of Covid, Trezi enabled a smooth transition from traditional in-office workspaces to fast-paced virtual environments. Covid helped to put Trezi to the test, exposing Trezi to the heavy user influx and promoting efficient management of oncoming traffic without compromising on user experience. Trezi improved the system to remove the limit on the number of virtual attendees within a Trezi meeting at a given time and expanded the technology to make it more accessible to the average desktop user, eliminating the need for clunky VR headsets. Trezi also increased user accessibility by offering the product at discounted prices and ensuring unlimited user access to collaborative features to enable virtual coworking of teams when the entire global market was thrown off-kilter.
VR is also a game-changer in the real estate market. Vivex VR developed by SmartVizX allows buyers to view and tour multiple properties across the world from the comfort of their homes, putting forward a clearer picture than the average 2d or 3d architectural drawings and renders. It also helps to develop a better understanding of light, movement, and circulation within an existing design, helping to weed out any design discrepancies early on. This technology is currently being used to develop high-quality analytical tools to predict customer behavior and redefine property search by increasing transparency between the buyer and seller. Outside of real estate, SmartVizX also took the initiative of investing in Facebook’s Oculus Rift Development Kits to develop ArchViz VR to see views from how your built project will emerge to look 20 years into the future. This technology promises exciting avenues to revolutionize, problem control, and cost management very early on the project and develops a better understanding of materiality when given site context. The technology is also working towards opening avenues of incorporating sensory and olfactory elements such as smell, sound, wind, heat, etc. to create a wholly immersive user environment in the coming future.
Tithi Tewari-A Win For Women’s Entrepreneurship
SmartVizX is also an absolute win in terms of securing a place for women entrepreneurship and putting India’s mark on the global design scape. At the early teething stages of the startup, the lack of women in the industry was glaringly evident, however, recently women joining the corporate landscape is becoming more prevalent across all industries. Tithi Tewari’s work in acting as a front-runner to navigate and ground a stable foundation for SmartVizX within the market serves as another step towards securing a more inclusive workplace within traditionally male-dominated S.T.E.M. fields. Tithi’s genius in combining management acumen and design along with tackling hurdles associated with project delivery is directly responsible for her success as a woman-led startup in a hostile environment.
It’s a no-brainer, really, that more women in the boardroom will foster greater understanding and inclusivity to better existing work environments. Part of Tithi’s hopes for SmartVizX includes creating a conscious and organized effort to provide opportunities, flexibility, and mentorship for a variety of roles and responsibilities – ‘for women, and by women’. Tithi is optimistic about changing perceptions about women entrepreneurs and working towards welcoming a more nurturing environment for female-led start-ups. In an interview about the Start-up India Initiative (which promises government-sanctioned loans ranging from Rs. 10lakh-1crore for women entrepreneurs), she expects meaningful positive changes within the corporate jungle with the advent of empowering women to be in a financial position to scale up their businesses and attract potential investors in crucial crunch time. In the deeply rooted patriarchal minefield, Women will be called to prove their mettle time and time again yet, but Tithi’s success with SmartVizX marks the beginning of a more positive future.
The Future Of SmartVizX
SmartVizX has already executed VR projects in real estate, working for businesses such as Bangkok-based Rockworth and HNI Corp, and expanded to provide VR solutions in the U.S., Dubai, and South Africa. Today Trezi is being used by India’s topmost architects, infrastructure developers, co-working companies, large enterprises, developers, and manufacturing firms. According to Tithi, it is currently used by 50% of India’s top 50 architectural firms. Smart VizX has garnered a lot of attention both internationally and nationally. At NASSCOM “Start-Up Konnect”, they were critically upheld as ‘startup rockstars’ maximizing VR and potential. Later, they were applauded by a Young Turk’s conclave hosted by a television company which put them in the limelight for several investors. According to Tithi, “We are being circumspect about where we get our funding from because we want to partner with the right profile of investors, someone who will bring in intellectual capital and domain expertise, apart from just money.”
In the five years since conception, SmartVizX has an overall revenue of approximately $4.5 million, raising a further $500,000 in 2016 from Ian and Stanford Angels enterprises, as well as securing $1.5million and $1 million in 2018 from Your Nest VC, IAN fund and Rockstud Capital Investment Fund.
SmartVizX is a company that represents the perfect merger between ingenuity and experience backed by the founders’ connections. It works to redefine what VR is capable of and markets it as something with real-time value. From an entrepreneur’s lens, it is a vital lesson in playing a balancing act between practical concerns, suggestions, and criticisms. It highlights the need to push for constant growth outside of an affixed comfort zone to survive and thrive within a competitive marketplace and revitalize preconceived practices within the industry.
References
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Pande Lavakare, J., 2021. How Indian startup SmartVizX is using virtual reality in real estate & product design. [online] The Economic Times. Available at: <https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/how-indian-startup-smartvizx-is-using-virtual-reality-in-real-estate-product-design/articleshow/48311803.cms?from=mdr> [Accessed 28 November 2021].
Prasad, S., 2021. Meet Tithi Tewari: A womenpreneur, whose startup is used by over 50% of India’s top 50 architecture firms – Unkrate. [online] Unkrate. Available at: <https://unkrate.com/2020/08/meet-tithi-tewari-a-womenpreneur-whose-startup-is-used-by-over-50-of-indias-top-50-architecture-firms/> [Accessed 28 November 2021].
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