The Volumetric Pivot: Immersive IP as the New Creator Asset
AI-generated image · Bay Street Wire
Peripheral Labs is targeting the sports market with spatial intelligence, signaling a shift toward high-fidelity, navigable 3D content.
In the creator economy, the value proposition is shifting from static assets to immersive, high-fidelity IP. The emergence of volumetric video represents a frontier where content is no longer just viewed, but navigated.
Toronto-based Peripheral Labs is positioning itself at the center of this shift. As BetaKit first reported, the startup was founded in 2024 by CEO Kelvin Cui and CTO Mustafa Khan to develop a large reconstruction model (LRM) capable of transforming 2D camera imagery into fully navigable 3D video. The company is leveraging robotics and autonomous vehicle perception to solve the primary hurdles of quality, cost, and speed in volumetric capture.
To scale this vision, Peripheral recently hired Shaun Carrigan, the former head of product at Meta Reality Labs, as its first chief product officer. Carrigan, who previously led the first Winter Olympics in VR and worked on the NFL's first interactive volumetric experience during his tenure at Intel Sports, told BetaKit that volumetric video is the future of the medium.
While Carrigan's immediate goal is delivering volumetric clips to broadcasters for social media and live replays, the underlying infrastructure—which includes markerless tracking for live sports—creates a new category of owned IP. The company has already launched what it claims to be the first biomechanics basketball shooting lab in North America located outside of the NBA.
This technical push is backed by significant capital. BetaKit reports that Peripheral recently closed a seed round totaling $8.7 million USD ($12.4 million CAD). The round was led by Deloitte Ventures and Inovia Capital, with participation from Entrepreneurs First and Khosla Ventures.