• Vū Technologies has held grand openings for two virtual-production studios so far this year. In February it opened in Las Vegas, followed by Nashville on March 16. The company has also announced plans for its fourth virtual-production studio to open in Orlando later in 2022, with 32,000 square feet of space and three on-site stages. Fast-growing Vū, which also operates a location in Tampa, Fla., focuses on corporate-event production as well as advertising-, television-, and film-industry projects.
• On March 1, event management leader Freeman announced Hubilo as its pick for a virtual-event platform partner. The seven-year-old San Francisco-based Hubilo, which launched a hybrid-event platform last summer and raised $125 million in Series B funding last fall, will provide Freeman customers with a range of digital-event capabilities, from breakout sessions to digital booths to virtual happy hours.
• Array, a content-engagement solution for life-sciences events that allows live, virtual, or hybrid audiences to ask questions, participate in discussions, and respond to polling, has received a U.S. patent on its “systems and methods for improved meeting engagement.”
• London-based Virtual event platform Tevent has raised $2 million in seed funding to support product development, in advance of Series A funding. The product, which focuses on interactivity and collaboration and is aimed at small- and midsize organizations, can be used for free during its current beta phase.
• Virtual-event platform Shindig has launched a new online product aimed at giving employees and teams a place for casual meetings. Called Watercoolr, the informal virtual lounge allows many private conversations to happen at the same time in an effort to recreate the casual, ad hoc gatherings that take place in a physical office.
• Interprefy, which offers remote real-time language interpretation, is now available as an add-on to Teams, Microsoft’s online meeting and collaboration app. Participants in Teams meetings that are integrated with Interprefy can speak and listen in any of 10 supported languages (Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Ukrainian). Interpreters working remotely deliver interpretation into the required language in real time.
