Incubated at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL), Strivr was founded in 2015 by Derek Belch, then graduate student and assistant football coach for the Stanford Cardinals. Using the football field as a testing ground for his Master’s thesis, Belch set out to investigate whether training athletes off the field in virtual reality (VR) could improve athletic performance on the field. Spoiler alert — it worked.
Belch’s unique approach to VR for athletic training was developed in close collaboration with Stanford professor and VHIL founding director, Jeremy Bailenson, whose extensive research on the cognitive and behavioral effects of extended reality (XR) has long since validated the effectiveness of immersive experiences in driving real-world behavioral change.
In 2016, Strivr shifted its focus from the athlete to the employee, partnering with leading Fortune 1000 companies including Bank of America, MGM Resorts, Sprouts, Verizon, and Walmart to elevate workforce performance through immersive experience.
Combining the sense of presence enabled by VR with advanced learning theory, data science, and spatial design, immersive learning provides employees with realistic, high-impact training experiences that improve engagement, knowledge retention, self-efficacy, and confidence. As the leading enterprise XR platform, Strivr enables the deployment of immersive training at scale while serving as a bridge to the connected immersive worlds of tomorrow.
