AtlasVR: The Venture Leader Mobile providing cost-efficient and effective training in VR

07.02.2025 10:00, Rita Longobardi

Meet Christian Hirt, CEO of AtlasVR. The ICT startup develops VR-based vocational training solutions that use AI to convert videos into interactive training simulations. In March, Christian will join nine other innovators on a business development and investor roadshow in Barcelona.

Name: Christian Hirt
Location: Flüelen, Schlieren
Nationality: Swiss
Graduated from: ETH Zurich
Job title: Co-Founder and CEO
Number of employees: 10
Money raised: CHF 668'000
 

---

---

Can you tell us who your product or solution helps, and how?
Companies spend an average of USD 1,207 per employee on training, yet Fortune Global 500 firms lose USD 1.5 trillion annually due to inefficiencies from unplanned downtimes, delays, and failures—often linked to poor training and workforce engagement. Virtual Reality (VR) training offers clear advantages when training is hazardous, resource-intensive, equipment-dependent, or involves large groups. Replacing traditional methods improves availability and reduces costs. AtlasVR helps companies enhance efficiency and employee motivation with proven, cost-effective VR training while conserving resources in safe, engaging scenarios.

What market are you addressing and what is the potential of your startup in that market?
Our main focus is the construction industry (e.g., suissetec, Campus Sursee), where VR training reduces risks, costs, and resource use. A construction customer investing in VR training sees an average first-year account value of CHF 40k. With innovation budgets at 20%, only companies with 250+ employees (budgets over CHF 200k) qualify. In the DACH region, this equates to 22,500 potential customers, leading to a CHF 900M market. A 5% share results in CHF 45M, while scaling globally (DACH at 2.5% of the market) expands it to CHF 36B.

How and where did you come up with the idea for your startup?
My Co-Founder Valentin Holzwarth collaborated for six years at ETH Zurich in the scope of our PhD thesis focused on various aspects of training in VR. Through our industrial research projects, we understood that there is a market need that we decided to fill with AtlasVR.

What do you expect from the Venture Leaders roadshow, and how do you think it will help you achieve your vision?
We will be finalizing our investment round soon and are actively searching for an investor outside of Switzerland, which will support us in our internationalization strategy to explore new markets. As such, we expect to get in touch with potential investors, may it be angels or institutionals, from Spain who share our vision. Naturally, as we're looking into international expansion, evaluating the potential of business partnerships in Spain and the potential to create a local team in Barcelona will be an important topic as well.
 
What are your team's key achievements to date?
We validated our business model and identified our customer vertical with solid traction and have ongoing field tests with well-known customers (Swiss Post, M-Industrie). At the same time, we're fully booked until summer 2025 and negotiating more contracts for the second half of 2025. Furthermore, we reduced our internal production costs by 85% and established the core team in Switzerland. Finally, we won the gold medal for best Swiss XR application and the silver model for best business impact at the "Best of Swiss Apps" 2025. 

Is there a key principle or value that guides you as you build your company?
Our vision is to create training that is available to anyone, anywhere, at any time they potentially need it. Additionally, the training is fair and inclusive and respects each trainee's learning speed and further needs, making it as customized and individualized as possible. 

What is the most important lesson you have learned as a founder?
Pushing a new technology means that customers sometimes don't know what they need or want. Helping them formulate pain points is the first step towards introducing a new technology. Regarding our perspectives: Just because we have a scientifically validated and proven technology, it doesn't mean that customers will run for the idea. We needed to keep agile when adjusting our technological offering to the market needs and our customers to form valid business cases. 

What is your favorite productivity hack or tool and why?
Habits, or even “rituals”, are important to me. Keeping certain regularities or routines makes lots of things easier in daily life. As such, I'm getting to the office and have my first coffee of the day while not working for five minutes (e.g. reading the news or a stupid article). After that, I identify my three most relevant tasks of the day and briefly review the daily plan before getting started. 

What was your dream job when you were a child?
Funny enough, with us targeting the construction industry, I always wanted to be a construction worker. Plain and simple. Build something with my own hands. Today I understand how this can be adapted to what I'm doing with our AtlasVR.