Laguna Beach-based virtual reality content maker NextVR Inc. is scouting areas in Orange County to expand operations and accommodate its growing employment base.
Several new projects, venture capital funding and a recent partnership with FOX Sports have prompted the company to seek dozens of new software engineers as it evolves alongside one of the hottest segments in technology.
NextVR plans to double its employment by the end of the year to about 100, according to Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy David Cramer, who was hired about a year ago to lead business development and partnerships to help scale the company.
It doesn’t appear NextVR will follow the path of Oculus VR Inc., which moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley after it was acquired in 2014 for $2 billion by Menlo Park-based Facebook Inc. Oculus still maintains some operations at Newport Gateway near the Irvine-Newport Beach city line.
“We are looking to expand our footprint locally in Orange County,” Cramer said. “We don’t have any plans to open offices in anyplace else.”
The company has been linked to a potential new space around the Park Place campus in Irvine near Jamboree Road and the San Diego (I-405) Freeway, according to a Business Journal report last month.
NextVR, one of the most-watched companies in OC, is developing a VR content guide for consumers delivered through an app or Web portal that aims to become the go-to source for scheduling, calendars and events.
It recently signed a five-year deal with FOX Sports to broadcast live virtual reality content. The company in the fourth quarter received $30.5 million in funding from a mix of finance, sports and entertainment backers.
Natural Gas Push
Clean Energy Fuels Corp. Chief Executive Andrew Littlefair is backing Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe’s efforts to push the Environmental Protection Agency to incorporate natural gas vehicles as a response to the diesel emission scandal involving Volkswagen Group.
The German automaker missed a March 24 deadline set by U.S. regulators to address some 580,000 diesel-powered vehicles sold nationwide that were equipped with software that skirted emissions tests. Vehicles in some cases emitted 40 times the federal limit. VW is facing a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice seeking more than $46 billion for its violations.
The company now is prohibited from selling diesel vehicles, as well as Audis and Porsches, in the U.S. until the matter is settled.
Newport Beach-based Clean Energy is the country’s biggest builder and operator of natural gas fueling stations, with $384.3 million in revenue last year. Natural gas is exhumed through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a controversial technique that penetrates thousands of feet into the earth by using blasts of water, sand and other chemicals. The process has been linked to contaminated underground water reserves and spring well leaks.
Oklahoma is one of the country’s top natural gas-producing states, accounting for 7.4% of U.S. gross production and marketed production in 2014, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The state is also home to Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp., the country’s second largest natural gas producer. Chesapeake has invested at least $150 million into Clean Energy.
SSDs Gain Traction
Solid-state drives are gradually accounting for more of the share of notebook sales. The drives, which use chips to store and transfer data, accounted for about 25% of the 64.8 million units sold in the fourth quarter, according to market tracker DRAMeXchange. That’s up from about 20% in the third quarter.
DRAMeXchange predicts that SSDs will be carried in about 30% of notebooks this year, which is welcome news for Irvine-based Western Digital Corp., Kingston Technology Inc. in Fountain Valley, and Taiwan-based Transcend Information Inc., which has its U.S. operations in Orange.
