Virtual-reality company Vrse redubs itself Within, raises $13 million - CNET

Vrse, a company that makes virtual-reality films and is known for helping create The New York Times' VR projects, is changing its name to Within, and it announced a $12.56 million round of funding.

"When you're in VR, you're experiencing something that you are within," Drew Leer, the company's chief operating officer, said in an interview. "We didn't want our name to be something that alludes to technology or a catchphrase [but to] be more about what our mission is."

In a blog post, CEO Chris Milk said people reading the name Vrse often didn't know how to say it, and people who knew how to pronounce the name sometimes didn't know how to spell it.

Virtual reality is an entertainment format that makes viewers feel like they're in the middle of the action, created by wearing a responsive headset. It's among the buzziest consumer technologies this year, as big investments in VR hardware by tech giants like Facebook and Samsung start to deliver those products to consumers more widely.

The majority of VR content is geared to gaming, but Within is one of a handful of companies focused on making narrative VR experiences that are like immersive short films.