Image Source: Visual China

Beijing, June 28 (TMTPOST) – Xiaomi’s former virtual reality (VR) director and Vyou’s founder Ma Jiesi has reportedly joined TikTok’s parent company ByteDance.

It is said that Ma will be responsible for directing Pico’s social networking business.

Ma’s startup PoliQ, which focuses on virtual avatars and the metaverse, has also been acquired by ByteDance. PoliQ’s team has been integrated into Pico.

ByteDance has not responded to the news reports. However, internal sources from ByteDance have confirmed the matter to China Securities Journal, saying that Ma will be reporting to Pico’s head Zhou Hongwei.

Ma founded the iMOE site and later worked for HTC and Deepglint. He then served as a Senior Director of Xiaomi’s VR/AR team. Ma started his startup PoliQ in 2019 after Xiaomi dismissed its VR team earlier that year.

At Xiaomi, Ma spearheaded Xiaomi’s collaboration with Facebook on Oculus and helped roll out Oculus Go’s Chinese version. Ma believes that social features are an important part of mobile VR use scenes. He stated in an interview that social features would be an important trend for VR products in the future.

PoliQ launched its first mobile application Vyou on November 21, 2020. The mobile application allows users to create their own virtual avatars and socialize with their friends. Users can do photography and many other interactions with their friends on Vyou. The mobile app is positioned as a mobile app.

Established in March 2015, Pico is a tech company specializing in VR technology for mobile devices. The company is dedicated to building a world leading mobile VR hardware and content platform. Headquartered in Beijing, the company also has offices and research and development centers in Qingdao, China, Japan and North America.

The company’s offline sales channels cover over 40 cities in China. Pico was acquired by ByteDance in 2021 and merged with ByteDance’s VR business.