Blog
The rooom Year 2023
- rooom Insights & Partners
- Blog
Another big year wraps up. 2023 was all about facing challenges, growing, and inspiring experiences. Despite the upheavals caused by wars, inflation, and a dramatic market situation, we remained steadfast. Let's take a closer look together at the highlights, milestones, and innovations of the past 365 days! Here are our highlights:
January
DER SPIEGEL kicked off an exciting year with an article about rooom. The BIG Innovation Awards recognition by the Business Intelligence Group gave us momentum, while our Digital Fashion Solutions caught a lot of attention at different events.
Joining the JenaVersum innovation network opened up new opportunities for local networking in science and business. With the integration of the enhanced editor for rooom360 and the successful presentation of the rooomPortal at the NRF in New York, we set impressive milestones for the year 2023 in January.
February
As part of the interactive "MetaToys" exhibition space, we showcased Augmented and Virtual Reality at the Nuremberg Toy Fair, demonstrating to the professional audience the digital added value that rooom can offer in gaming, entertainment, and education.
March
3D technology is on the rise in e-commerce. The improved version of the 3D Space Editor enters its beta phase and opens up a new era of virtual space design that promises even more intuitive and powerful use.
Web3 and the connection of 3D worlds with tokens are becoming more and more relevant. Our rooomies also represent us energetically at the Jena company run with top performances.
April
Topics such as New Work and digital education are increasingly gaining attention. With a virtual Easter egg hunt, we bring egg-citement into the daily work routine.
Meanwhile, our Italian partner Melazeta are holding down the fort for us at the BOLD Award Finals in Venice. Our new "Playground" for developers makes individual development with the platform even easier and more comfortable. We’re constantly expanding our rooomSpaces templates with new ideas and concepts, resulting in even more templates for our catalog. At the Leipzig Book Fair, we hit a cultural high note by unveiling the new version of "Regentröpfchens Reise."
May
At the OMR Festival in Hamburg we can not only network, present exciting showcases, and captivate the audience with our use cases. Additionally, rooom CEO Hans Elstner delivers an inspiring masterclass on “The Art of Metaverse Marketing.”
At the same time, our “Metaverse for Learning” with Techem is in the finals of the delina Awards, proving again we’re on the right track to making education even more virtual and innovative. Also, our interactive webinar in the rooomPartner World is recognized at the Eventex Awards.
June
The official rooomNewsletter lands in email inboxes for the first time, promising regular updates and exciting insights for our community. Additionally, the rooom Discord server launches to create an active platform for exchange, discussions, and direct communication within the community.
July
Teaming up with industry leaders like Vodafone and BSH, we’re launching some groundbreaking Smart Learning projects. The trend surrounding the Barbie movie has also reached the world of 3D spaces – our “Skylounge” becomes an eye-catcher, decked out entirely in pink.
August
To mark our seventh anniversary, we’re getting sporty! We’re throwing a big bash for our "rooomiversary", complete with a fantastic program and great atmosphere. Additionally, our software development team is hard at work: As we are introducing our virtual AI assistant. We are also thrilled that "natura Jenensis", as part of the SaaleHorizontale, has been named Germany’s most beautiful hiking trail of 2023. This is further proof that nature and digital knowledge transfer make an unbeatable and enriching duo.
September
It's time to celebrate – we announce the completion of an investment round totaling 17 million euros! The funds raised will primarily be used for marketing activities and further internationalization. Along with new investors, existing ones have reinvested, reinforcing the belief in the growing importance of 3D visualization and Metaverse solutions.
Our success has caught the eye of the press, including big names like the Handelsblatt. We’re excited to be part of Digital X and DMEXCO again, and this year they're happening at the same time – a logistical challenge we mastered!
October
We are honored with the prestigious European Metaverse Awards twice, proving our leading role in the Metaverse world. At the book fair, we're rolling out our newest Smart Books, pushing the envelope when it comes to technology in children’s literature. And as the icing on the cake, a text chat is integrated into rooomSpaces, making communication in virtual spaces even easier and more seamless. We'reshowcasing our Smart Learning solutions in several webinars – and they're a hit!
November
German Business Award – we are thrilled to receive the award for “Best Enterprise Metaverse Experience Development Platform”! We have made our platform even more user-friendly and intuitive, enabling both tech novices and developers to interact with our platform quickly and easily. Another highlight: The German Digital Summit is coming to Jena and we are part of it.
With stylish rooom-Hoodies, our avatars can now make a fashion statement in the virtual world. The advantage: each company can design its own individual clothing pieces.
December
The Sonnemondsterne Festival celebrates a virtual release show in a state-of-the-art 3D environment. In a space-themed style, visitors can enjoy several DJs, fantastic light effects, and an AI robot, and alsopurchase tickets for the next festival. Keeping the Christmas vibes going, we're bringing back our beloved Advent table tradition this year. To round off the year, the rooomies from all over gather for the Christmas party – in "real life" for the first time in years.
Heading into 2024 with innovation and Engagement!
This year, we observed that the Metaverse trend has simmered down a bit and has now become an established part of the business world. The focus is now more on further developing meaningful applications to provideadditional value to our users. We are increasingly relying on partnerships to expand our reach, especially within Europe. In the future, we aim to make our solution suitable not only for VR but also for AR headsets, while AI will continue to play a crucial role in the development of our products.
We also want to continue reviving our team events. In 2023, we had fun after-work and LAN parties, as well as a Carnival celebration in the office with fantastic costumes. Our sporty rooomies also rocked events like the company run, charity run, and the city cycling. Also, there have been some exciting developments in the office, like the installation of a charging station for electric cars!
We are proud of the numerous partnerships we have won, including companies like axxessio, Stereoscape, ion2s, Linkando, Dimenteers, DNA, shopware, and many others. 2023 was another year jam-packed with exciting events and a whole heap of awards and honors.
Furthermore, we were very active in research and development in 2023: Several research projects were launched, for example, in the fields of culture, medical technology, and e-commerce. Goals like an even more user-friendly platform and new features for rooomSpaces, rooomProducts, and rooom360 were successfully realized in 2023.
Despite many challenges this year, our team stuck together, helping our company keep growing and making our visions a reality. We look forward to continuing to shape the future of the virtual world together in 2024 and achieving more independence.
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