Luciding, a Ukrainian startup whose headband device “provides lucid dreams every night,” has received $10,000 in investment from iQSpace, a business incubator based in Odessa, southern Ukraine, as reported earlier this month by AIN.UA.
Another $10,000 will be injected under the condition that the device obtain a European certification and get its first 100 clients.
This is the first funding deal for iQSpace, which launched in December 2015.
“The team behind Luciding is strong, they’re ready to fight to the bitter end,” commented iQSpace co-founder Alexander Yakovenko.
Creating your own dreamworld
By detecting your rapid eye movements (REM), the Luciding device lets you understand that you are in a dream – making your dreams come true in a sense.
“After that, you can do virtually anything in your own dreamworld,” the startup claims.
Luciding also features a mobile app and a social network to “choose your next dream, share experience, and find lucid friends.” Additionally, users are offered to keep a diary of their dreams.
In 2015 WannaBiz, a former incubator and now an investment fund based in Odessa, backed the startup with an initial $15,000 seed-stage investment. Then the company secured $35,000 from international business angel Javier Vazquez and $20,000 from Jack Levin, one of the first Google employees.
As of today, the startup’s team consists of twelve people. The project began in early 2014.
Focus on production
Luciding has already designed ten prototypes of its gadget. All of them assembled at the startup’s own manufacturing line, as reported by AIN.UA.
As of today, the device is being tested in Ukraine, Estonia and Russia. But the startup will ultimately target the US and European markets with an expected price of $299 per item.
“Several factors were preventing the project from fast development, as several experts pointed out. These issues have been thoroughly analyzed before injecting the funding. As a result, the investment has been made under the condition that the team focus exclusively on production and fixing technical issues,” commented iQSpace CEO Vadim Rogovskiy in an exchange with Ukraine Digital News.
“The investors’ main goals are to launch commercial production within three months and to launch a crowdfunding campaign based on the first customers’ feedback. iQSpace expects significant results to come by the end of this year,” Rogovskiy added.
