The last three decades of the internet saw content evolve from text to images to videos and short-form content, which saw the rise of modern day giants such as Youtube, Meta, Tiktok capturing audiences like never seen before and fundamentally transforming our lives.
Creators, brands & audiences haven’t been able to unlock the next level of engaging content beyond videos primarily due to the impossible tradeoffs presented to them.
Amit Gaiki, chief technology officer at Flam explained, “Prior to Flam’s foray into the space, advertisers were presented with two primary options – Browser based AR that offers high accessibility but low performance or app-based AR that offers high performance but low accessibility.”
He added, “Flam uniquely delivers on both fronts. It gives app-like performance with <175kb MR bundle without requiring app downloads and high accessibility like WebAR with significantly better latency <100 ms. It comprehensively supports 6 Bn+ smartphone devices with proprietary libraries, even the lowest end android phones.”
Through Flam, brands can publish interactive mixed reality content that can be accessed via QR codes or links. Consumers can access MR content by scanning QR codes on any medium, digital or in the physical world.
Flam’s links make consumers get a chance to interact with the products virtually on digital platforms before buying them or just to engage with the brand.
Founded in 2021 by Shourya Agarwal, Malhar Patil and Amit Gaiki, Flam has worked with the likes of Samsung to launch its flagship smartphone series in India, and also powered Kamala Harris’ US Presidential election campaign, helping the former US Vice President reach and engage with more citizens in innovative ways.
“Flam has grown rapidly to power 80+ global and large-scale brands with MR infra in just a matter of months. Marquee brands and tech companies such as Google, Flipkart, Samsung, Emirates, LG, Wargaming deploying Flam’s AI is a testament to our enterprise grade infrastructure. Beyond advertising and communication, Flam is disrupting e-commerce, entertainment, retail and numerous other markets. We are built for scale and our adoption across geographies excites me for the massive potential ahead,” added Patil.
The startup raised INR 38 Cr ($4.5 Mn) in its Pre-Series A funding round in May 2024 from institutional investors such as Silicon Valley Quad, Inventus Capital Partners, Turbostart, Twin Ventures, marquee angels like Kalyan Krishnamurthy (CEO, Flipkart), Veteran Venture Capitalist Ashish Gupta, celebrity cricketer KL Rahul and YRF chief executive officer, Akshaye Widhani.
With a digital reach of over 500 Mn users, Flam deploys mixed reality experiences via image tracking, ground tracking and digital experiences backed by proprietary AI algorithms for lightning fast recognition and enterprise grade content delivery.
“Mixed reality content aligns with the marketing and communication strategy across channels — whether they do television, digital, print, out-of-home, retail product packaging, WhatsApp or Instagram ads. We have barely scratched the surface. With our fast expanding product suite, Flam is firmly positioned to capture a massive foothold not just in the $1 Tn advertising market, but the digital ecosystem as a whole,” Agarwal told Inc42.
Diving Deep Into Flam’s Mixed Reality Play
In the 2010s, marketing was evolving and trying to figure out how to integrate emerging technologies into their advertising strategy, that is when MR/AR tried to pick up the pace but the campaigns, despite being well designed, could not go far. The reason – a lack of strong and scalable backend infrastructure that can deliver a pure MR experience without trading off the accessibility and performance of the model.
Marketing professionals, especially when it comes to promoting their brands, would any day prefer not to do anything over putting an edgy attempt at public display. Even though Snapchat, 8thWall, etc exist, they either require a native application downloaded and installed in the smartphone of the end consumer or offer a WebAR experience, which is of subpar quality with latency >5-6 secs.
Flam addresses the root cause of these inadequacies and tradeoffs by offering a lightweight MR bundle that is compatible across 100% mobile devices. Content and MR experiences can be delivered on a single click without any app installation or browser redirection.
Key Standout Features Of Flam
- App like efficiency with unmatched accessibility
- No-code, easy-to-deploy high-quality graphics
- Lightning fast image recognition by AI, with a capability to search billion+ concurrent targets real time
- Proprietary libraries to support 40% of low-end devices which lack AR Core support
- Faster, better, and more efficient performance than any other infra
- High Resolution (4K 120 FPS) output
- Ultra-low latency in content delivery
“Even with the connection of 4 Mbps, which is the minimum benchmark for 3G connections, Flam can empower the end user to interact with the content within 500 milliseconds, solving one of the biggest hurdles in MR experiences – accessibility,” said Gaiki.
Moreover, once the bundle is opened on the smartphone, it can interact with every hardware acceleration sensor on the device, making sure that the user experience is as seamless as possible, minimising any difference between using other mixed reality apps.
The startup’s tech uses advanced surface, depth, and light detection to provide a more immersive and dynamic user experience which is not possible with the WebAR capabilities.
For example, the median time taken by WebAR to load and show the first screen is around 6-8 seconds, which is more than 2X than the average watch time for Instagram reels. So it’s a problem of holding the viewer’s attention.
Flam claims to provide a much higher graphic fidelity and a more realistic experience in under 100 ms, which is exponentially faster than WebAR solutions, which is the industry’s go-to open source standard for AR development.
Flam also stands out by offering better device coverage and advanced motion-tracking capabilities. While the other solutions available in the market face limitations, such as incompatibility with lower-spectrum Android devices and reliance on basic browser-based tracking; Flam claims 100% device compatibility with its proprietary tech stack.
The R&D Behind The Tech
Gaiki revealed that months of R&D has gone into optimising the client-side application and addressing performance challenges, such as cutting down on stabilisation and environmental tracking, which helped in reducing the file size of the bundle, and improving accessibility of the content.
Arguably Flam’s biggest claim to fame was when it powered the US Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. With Flam, Harris was able to interact with her supporters and mobilise millions of potential voters during the campaign on broadcast television.
Besides this, Flam also powered a mixed reality fashion show for Reliance-owned AJIO that allowed users to turn billboards into runways. For Flipkart, Flam emulated Harry Potter by making the Big Billion Days Sale’s ad leap out of the front page.
Flam also implemented MR for a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra ad which allowed the viewers to interact with the ad itself to explore a key feature of the phone.
Flam’s collaboration with Britannia and The Hindu also garnered strong attention with the newspaper ad featuring actor Ranveer Singh coming to life as soon as viewers scanned the QR code on their smartphone.
From Tanishq’s MR shopping experience to Shashi Tharoor’s election campaign, Flam has proved its mettle in the MR and adtech business, with an objectively defined impact on engagement, clicks, CTR and other key metrics.
Will Mixed Reality Tech Shake Up The Ad Industry?
With millions of brands out there, advertising is a complex landscape and technology is the one way to break through the clutter. Brands have always looked to break through the noise and stand out.
Mixed reality is the newest piece in the puzzle and with more and more mixed reality devices hitting the market, one can say that this is the beginning of the MR era. Mark Zuckerberg positioning the Meta Quest 3 as a mixed reality headset is indicative of this.
Flam is enabling brands to pivot their advertising from one-way content publishing to two-way interactions. The startup’s no-code tech stack has huge potential as brands and ad agencies typically do not want to spend huge capital and resources when it comes to the engineering required for mixed reality and immersive content.
And in addition to this, Flam AI infra intends to make MR accessible for consumers and viewers. Essentially, it solves the two biggest challenges holding back mixed reality today.
Going forward, Agarwal claims Flam wants to democratise mixed reality, and bring it not only to brands but also to individual creators, who can explore newer ways of non-linear storytelling and content creation.
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