A Q&A with Condition One founder and CEO Danfung Dennis. The New York City–based company was founded in 2010 and closed a second Seed funding round ($2.35 million) in late October.
SUB: Please describe Condition One and your value proposition.
Dennis: Condition One is a technology company pioneering a new standard in video technology. Our flagship product is an embeddable immersive video player for the iPad and iPhone that creates a virtual window into a video. We license our video player to media companies and brands, working with their existing video production workflows and hardware, integrating seamlessly into existing applications or launched as a standalone product. We offer the future of video for the era of mobile and tablet computing.
SUB: Who are your target markets and users?
Dennis: We license our technology to high quality content producers, such as media companies, brands, production studios, agencies and filmmakers for applications in travel, sports, news, music—or any content where you want to give the viewer a first person experience.
SUB: Who do you consider to be your competition?
Dennis: Other panoramic video companies only offer complex and expensive hardware solutions, while our solution is simply software.
SUB: What differentiates Condition One from the competition?
Dennis: Our technology and workflow is different in both the capture and display method. Our capture does not rely on specialized equipment. All the cameras and lenses required to shoot Condition One video are available off the shelf. Our immersive video player is designed specifically for mobile and tablet devices, which takes advantage of the accelerometers and gyroscopes to control the viewer’s window into the video.
SUB: What was the inspiration behind the idea for Condition One? Was there an ‘aha’ moment, or was the idea more gradual in developing?
Dennis: The ideas for Condition One emerged while working as a photojournalist in Iraq and Afghanistan. I felt that existing technology was not able to convey that experience, so I needed to build a new way of capturing reality.
SUB: How did you come up with the name? What is the story behind it?
Dennis: During combat operations, Condition One is the highest state or readiness.
SUB: You recently raised $2.35 million in additional Seed funding. What are your plans for the funds?
Dennis: We plan to continue to build our engineering team in our Palo Alto office.
SUB: How does the company generate revenue or plan to generate revenue?
Dennis: Condition One is a software licensing company—we license our immersive video player to companies that want to incorporate our technology into their existing or new apps.
SUB: What are your goals for Condition One over the next year or so?
Dennis: We’re very excited to be building the second generation of our immersive video technology, which is set to be ready in the next few months. Our immersive video technology will have higher resolution and live streaming capabilities to meet the demands of the market.
Condition One – www.conditionone.com
