B2B SaaS · Seed · AI Collaboration · Communication Software · Evaluated by Jo Wickham, Icehouse Ventures
Verdict
Conditional yes to a first meeting.
The product concept is innovative, the team is genuinely strong, and there is real enterprise traction. But the central question - is this a new communication category or a feature Zoom ships in 2028 - remains unanswered. That question needs to be answered before the next conversation, not during it.
What must be true for this to work
- The product experience must be genuinely different enough that incumbents can't replicate it in 12-24 months - which means protectable IP beyond "we built it first."
- The impact numbers must be grounded in real methodology - sample size, baseline, measurement approach - not optimistic pilot anecdotes dressed as evidence.
- One vertical must be chosen and dominated before expanding to architecture, automotive, and SaaS sales simultaneously.
What HoloMeet Does
HoloMeet helps remote teams communicate as if they're physically in the same room - using AI to transform a standard webcam into a life-sized, full-body presence that appears in the other person's environment, on hardware they already own.
Think: Zoom, but instead of a floating head in a rectangle, you appear life-sized in the other person's space - no headset, no hardware, no IT procurement request.
Raising: $4.5M USD seed · Founder: Lucas Reyes
Interested in learning more about HoloMeet?
HoloMeet Intro Email3 Things That Could Kill This
1. Zoom ships this in their next update
HoloMeet's own pitch describes itself as "the next version of Zoom" - which is precisely the problem. Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet have the engineering resources, distribution, and existing customer relationships to absorb spatial video as a feature. History shows they copy, not acquire, when the threat is early-stage. Without a clear answer to why this can't be replicated in 12-24 months, the most likely venture outcome is watching an incumbent ship the same feature for free.
Why this matters: A technically impressive product with no durable moat is not a company - it's a proof of concept for a larger player's roadmap. Investors need confidence in the standalone path, not just the acquisition scenario.
2. The impact numbers don't hold up
"30-50% fewer communication breakdowns," "40% faster onboarding," and "20-35% higher enterprise sales conversion" are bold claims - but there is no methodology behind them. From what baseline? Across how many customers? Measured over what period? At $64k MRR across 12 pilots, these should be real numbers by now. Instead they read as optimistic estimates, which raises a harder question: does the team not yet have the data, or do they not know how to tell their own story with it?
Why this matters: Unsupported impact claims are an immediate credibility problem with enterprise buyers and investors alike. One grounded case study - real customer, real numbers, real methodology - is worth more than four impressive-sounding percentages.
3. No vertical focus at $4.5M seed
The raise targets spatial video engine scaling, enterprise collaboration modules, APAC and Europe expansion, and industry-specific templates across architecture, automotive, and SaaS sales simultaneously. That is too many bets at once for a seed round. Each of those verticals has different buyers, different sales cycles, and different integration requirements. Spreading across all of them before achieving clear PMF in one means achieving shallow traction everywhere and deep traction nowhere.
Why this matters: $4.5M USD is a large seed round for a company without proven PMF in a single vertical. Without focus, the runway gets consumed before any one market is won.
Why This Might Actually Work
1. The team has rare and specific credentials
Lucas Reyes led virtual production at Unreal Engine. Amara Singh comes from Google Research with a specialism in 3D vision models. Dylan O'Connell was a PM at Figma building collaboration tools. This is not a generic founding team - it is three people with directly relevant, hard-to-replicate backgrounds for exactly this problem. That combination meaningfully increases the probability that the underlying technology is genuinely good.
2. The traction picture is stronger than it first appears
12 enterprise pilots, $64k MRR, 7,200 hours of spatial meetings processed, partnership discussions with Logitech and the Zoom Apps Marketplace, and 3 LOIs for broader rollout is a real signal stack for a seed-stage company. Someone is buying this, using it for thousands of hours, and asking for more. That is not nothing.
3. No-hardware positioning removes the biggest enterprise barrier
Anything requiring new hardware complicates enterprise procurement - shifting from OpEx to CapEx, triggering IT and security reviews, and introducing behavioural resistance that slows adoption. A software-only spatial experience that runs on existing laptops sidesteps all of that. It also keeps the business model clean, margins healthy, and product iteration fast - all critical at this stage.
4. Acquisition is a legitimate outcome - if the standalone case is built first
Zoom, Teams, or Google acquiring HoloMeet is a plausible and valuable venture outcome. The condition is that the company must first demonstrate enough standalone value and defensible differentiation to have leverage in that conversation - not be picked up cheaply as a talent acquisition before the product reaches scale.
What the Founder Should Do Next
- Lead every conversation with a live demo → The single most important thing HoloMeet can do right now is make the product experience undeniable in person. Jo Wickham's response - "I want to be turned into a hologram" - is the right instinct. Before the next investor meeting, the demo needs to be so strong that the question shifts from "is this real?" to "how do we get this?"
- Replace the impact numbers with one real case study → Pick the strongest pilot customer. Document what they measured, from what baseline, over what period. Publish that story. One credible case study with methodology eliminates the single biggest credibility gap in the current pitch.
- Answer the Zoom question before it's asked → What proprietary IP makes this unreplicable in 12-24 months? If the answer is Amara Singh's 3D vision model work, say that explicitly. If it is the 7,200 hours of spatial meeting data building a proprietary training dataset, lead with that. The moat needs to be named, not implied.
- Pick one vertical and win it → Architecture, automotive, and SaaS sales are three different businesses. Choose the one with the fastest sales cycle and the clearest pain, close it comprehensively, and build the expansion case from a position of dominance rather than breadth.
What This Teardown Teaches
Pattern 1 - "Next version of X" is a positioning trap
Framing your company as the next version of a dominant incumbent tells investors two things simultaneously: the market is real, and your most dangerous competitor already has distribution to every potential customer. The better frame is a new category that the incumbent cannot serve - which requires explaining why the incumbent's architecture, business model, or customer relationship prevents them from doing what you do.
Pattern 2 - Impact claims need a denominator
Percentage improvements are only meaningful with a baseline, a sample size, and a measurement method. "40% faster onboarding" from two customers over three weeks is a completely different claim than the same number from twenty customers over six months. Investors and enterprise buyers know the difference immediately. The absence of methodology signals either that the data doesn't exist yet, or that the team hasn't learned to communicate it - both are problems at this stage.
Pattern 3 - Acquisition is a valid outcome, but not a substitute for a standalone plan
Getting acquired by Zoom or Google is a legitimate and valuable venture outcome. But investors need confidence that the company can build standalone value first - otherwise there is no leverage in the acquisition discussion and no alternative if the incumbent passes. The two paths are not mutually exclusive. They require the same foundation: defensible IP, proven traction, and a clear commercial model.
30-Minute Meeting?
Conditional yes - narrowly
Yes, but contingent on a live demo first and sharper answers on two specific questions: what makes this unreplicable, and which vertical is the actual beachhead? If the demo lands and those questions have real answers, this conversation gets significantly more interesting. If the experience turns out to be awkward or unconvincing in practice, the whole thesis collapses.
Full VC Notes
Jo Wickham
Partner at Icehouse Ventures, with over ~$600m in funds under management and investments across 380+ New Zealand tech companies. Former General Counsel of NZX- and ASX-listed Vista Group and Head of Legal & Commercial at Movio.
1. Intro Email
Strong, clear, and compelling for a cold inbound, but it slightly undershoots by not fully helping me visualise the product or understand who the first real buyer is. I’m not yet convinced this is a venture-scale company rather than a technically impressive feature that gets quickly commoditised by incumbents like Zoom but I’m keen to read on! By commoditised, I mean that HoloMeet becomes a standard feature that’s easy to replicate so instead of HoloMeet being “the new category leader in spatial meetings” it becomes “the cool feature Zoom added in their 2028 update”.
2. Problem
The problem framing is strong and well-articulated. I don’t need further convincing that the problem exists.
3. Solution
The hardware-free angle feels like the right positioning - anything requiring new hardware is challenging for enterprise because it adds friction, cost, and risk for both the buyer and the startup. For customers, it complicates procurement (often shifting from simple OpEx to CapEx), triggers IT and security reviews, requires on-prem deployment and training, and introduces behavioural resistance that slows adoption. For an early-stage startup, it increases capital intensity, compresses margins, ties up cash in inventory, adds manufacturing and supply chain complexity, and can slow product iteration - all of which make scaling harder than a pure software model. That said, venture absolutely does invest in hardware when the upside justifies the complexity - it just requires exceptional execution and isn’t for the faint hearted!
However, I still don’t have a concrete mental model of the product - i.e. is this a 2D video composited into space? Is it AR only or laptop only? Do both parties need HoloMeet? What does the receiver actually see and where do I stand to see and be seen etc?
The impact numbers are super vague and unsupported. How are they calculated? From what baseline are the %s calculated? How many customers and how measured? They read like optimistic pilot anecdotes rather than solid case studies/evidence.
4. Traction
Great to see $64k of MRR from 12 pilots - suggests someone is willing to try this and to pay. It would be good to understand pilot usage metrics in more detail - is usage increasing week over week inside accounts? What does onboarding / rollout look like? Who is the economic buyer and user? What causes pilots to stop using it? More detail on LOIs and partnership discussions and how they’re thinking about protecting IP.
5. Market
The market sizing is a bit hand wavy - is there a bottom-up TAM of each segment? What will be the initial wedge use case and each market sizing? Could this stall as a niche novelty product?
6. Competition / Alternatives
The “next version of zoom” framing worries me - if this works, will Zoom, Teams, GoogleMeet etc. copy or acquire - history shows they copy. What is the protectable differentiated unique IP here that create a competitive moat? This section is mostly features rather than defensibility. Why can’t this be replicated by zoom/teams within 12-24 months? What is the durable moat beyond “we built it”?
Would you invest in a startup that has the potential to be acquired by one of the incumbents listed above?
Yes - we would absolutely invest in a company that has credible potential to be acquired by a major incumbent like Zoom, Teams, or Google, provided the business can demonstrate real product-market fit, meaningful revenue traction, and defensible differentiation; strategic acquisition is a highly viable venture outcome, but ideally its not the only path to success. We need confidence that the company can build standalone value, create leverage in any acquisition discussion, and avoid being easily replicated before it reaches meaningful scale.
7. Team
Unreal Engine, Google Research and Figma PM is a believable team for this problem and increases my willingness to believe that the tech might be good and the team can execute. I’m hopeful Amara is a woman too.
8. The Ask
US$4.5m for a seed round is quite large in NZ and for the stage company is at without clear PMF in one vertical. Runway and more detailed use of funds would be helpful. Not focusing on one vertical or geography so could be spreading themselves too thin. We’d definitely need to see more granular/ considered milestones for the round too.
9. Overall
Primary reason you’d pass:
I’m not yet convinced this is a venture-scale company rather than a technically impressive feature that gets quickly replicated or absorbed by incumbents like Zoom or Teams.
Primary reason you’d lean in:
If the product experience is as strong as claimed, this could represent a genuinely new communication category with early enterprise traction and a credible team to execute.
10. 30-Minute Meeting?
Yes, but narrowly - contingent on a live demo (I want to be turned into a hologram!! Is the experience actually just weird & awkward?) and sharper answers to some initial questions.
Strong, clear, and compelling for a cold inbound, but it slightly undershoots by not fully helping me visualise the product or understand who the first real buyer is. I’m not yet convinced this is a venture-scale company rather than a technically impressive feature that gets quickly commoditised by incumbents like Zoom but I’m keen to read on! By commoditised, I mean that HoloMeet becomes a standard feature that’s easy to replicate so instead of HoloMeet being “the new category leader in spatial meetings” it becomes “the cool feature Zoom added in their 2028 update”.
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🚨 Disclaimers: All startup companies, business models, products and founders described in VC Teardowns are fictional and created solely for educational purposes. Any resemblance to actual companies, persons or events — past, present or future — is purely coincidental. The opinion of each participating VC reflects their individual perspective and does not represent their firm as a whole. A teardown should not be treated as a universal rulebook. Founders are encouraged to engage investors early and build relationships — early conversations are often exploratory, not evaluative.