Why we exist

Our origin story

Immerse began in a Syrian refugee slum back in 2017. While serving in the Middle East, Quinn Taber (Founder and CEO) learned that social entrepreneurship was the key to long-term restoration for disenfranchised people groups. Interestingly enough, the business idea that struck most deeply to him at the time was based on two converging realities:

1) His personal experience becoming fluent in Arabic by immersing himself into Middle Eastern contexts and cultures.

2) Meta (formerly Facebook) acquiring the Oculus VR headset brand from a 21-year old inventor for $2 billion dollars.

The life-changing power of immersion was unquestionable and the VR hardware market seemed to have more promise than ever to go mainstream. So...

After traveling to nearly 50 countries over the course of three years, Quinn flew back to California, rallied some friends, and started Immerse. Since those early days, the world has changed dramatically. The Covid-19 pandemic, the Metaverse, the war on Ukraine, Web 3.0, AR/VR/XR technologies - none of these were household conversations when Immerse started - but now they are. Despite how the world has and will continue to change, however, our vision and passion will forever be the same: to leverage immersive technology to break down barriers to human connection.

Founder and CEO

Meet Quinn

Founder and CEO

Meet Quinn

Watch origin story

Our History

Founding

March 2017 – August 2019

Founding ($500k)

Quinn moved back to the USA, hired the founding team, and created the very first prototype for immersive language learning built on the Oculus Go VR headset.

Series A

September 2019 – February 2022

Series A ($2M)

While VR adoption steadily grew in the consumer market, Immerse saw an opportunity to help international language schools transform their 2D curriculum into immersive 3D experiences. So the Immerse team spent the next 18 months building the first ever VR language teaching and learning platform, closing over 30 institutional partnerships, and transitioning the company to work 100% remote as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Series B

March 2022 – Current Day

Series B ($9M)

Here's where the Immerse story gets really interesting. In what felt like a blink of an eye, two major shifts happened in the world: the Covid-19 pandemic completely disrupted the traditional education model and Facebook rebranded to Meta. To capitalize on this moment, Immerse raised $9M (100% from social impact investors) to pivot the company to become the world's first ever direct-to-consumer language immersion brand. We have since hired over a dozen people, been rated by Meta as the #1 VR language education app in VR, and launched the first VR Spanish and English language immersion programs in the world. We've come a looong way in just five years, but Immerse is just getting started.

Future

Immerse | A screen shot of Avatars and their corresponding language options.

To infinity and beyond

What does tomorrow hold?

With a vision to become the world's leader in immersive language education, we plan to launch multiple world languages over the next decade. As a result, we will seek to fully realize our mission to democratize access to language immersion experiences and cultivate the world's largest community of fluent, global citizens.

Our team