Müzeverse, now the main operator for immersive experiences in Istanbul and Türkiye, was engineered, step by step, in a city that had all the ingredients for immersive entertainment yet strangely few places to actually live it. In barely a couple of years, VR Future and its founders Virgile Mangiavillano and Fahad Rehman have turned a series of small experiments into a full-scale LBVR destination: a venue that treats operations, storytelling, and customer journey as one single product. This is not a feel-good startup story — it’s a field manual in disguise, showing how a new market can be activated through the right mix of content partnerships, relentless site-hunting, and an obsession with the details that make visitors come back.
Cover: Müzeverse: The First Immersive VR Museum of Türkiye @ Galataport
How to build a successful LBE space in less than 5 years
Müzeverse, a full-scale LBVR venue located in a high-density shopping/tourism centre in Istanbul, Türkiye, was launched in 2024 by VR Future and its founders Virgile Mangiavillano and Fahad Rehman.
Türkiye is no stranger to digital art and creations. Turkish artist Refik Anadol is a pioneer in embedding media arts into architecture with data and machine intelligence, and Istanbul is a global hub for game development – an almost $1 billion industry. There are several leading universities with research and development programmes that teach and bring XR into health and education industries, entertainment and cultural heritage contexts, and in 2024, Games for Change Türkiye became one of the newest chapters of the global non-profit. But there are few artistic productions, and compared to the rising immersive culture in cities across Europe, few opportunities for experiencing XR or immersive works in this international city. There are sporadic VR exhibitions in parallel with film festivals or other events, a digital museum recently opened by the city, and a small VR gallery experiment in the new Paribu art center.
Müzeverse founders Virgile Mangiavillano and Fahad Rehman were introduced online during COVID by Mangiavillano’s agent. Rehman, a film and event producer, was intrigued by Mangiavillano’s experience with new technologies and VR filmmaking. When Mangiavillano organized the Istanbul showcase for Venice Immersive’s traveling programme (2021), Rehman got his first taste of an immersive event.
“I told Virgile, ‘This is amazing. The concept amazing. Let’s scale it up, right?’ Obviously, for that we needed funding. And for his film, we needed funding. So we started an NFT project. In 2022, we sold out, and we raised way more than what we had originally thought of. We decided we should build a company and take this to market in Türkiye. So we started hosting VR exhibitions that were free. We were working with Gazhane [an old gas factory converted in to a public art space] and the city government, and with other private exhibitors as well. We were testing the market, different formats. There were long queues.”
“Turkey was ready for us. People do have disposable income here, it’s a good place to start. And generally, people are very technology forward. They’re willing to try to new things out.”
Beginning the journey – research and venues
They did their research, travelling to France (Mangiavillano is French and connected to the sector), to festivals, meeting with VR studios that were producing content and platforms. They met with Fabian Barati [co-founder of Excurio]. “At that time, Excurio did not have a franchise model,” explains Rehman. “They were just a one venue operation. We saw the studio, saw the experience. It was amazing. I thought, ‘We need to bring this to Turkey.’” They kept in contact, and when Excurio was ready with the franchise model, they signed an agreement.
Looking for venues took some time. “When we were looking, we went through 25 different locations,” recounts Rehman. “And most of them laughed us out of the door after hearing our presentation, saying it was impossible. We were interested in Galataport [their current space], but the deal wasn’t right. It was an immense amount of rent.”
Müzeverse opened first at UNIQ in 2024, a venue in the middle of a mall outside the heart of the city; it did not have the foot traffic benefit, but still attracted enough business to be successful. It was also a great location to start, because it helped them build the operational, marketing and sales infrastructure, all the pipelines that essentially prepared them for the high footfall venue in Galataport.
“As the economy hasn’t done so well, retail outlets were more open to us, people were willing to cut deals. So we validated the whole thing at UNIQ, and kept in touch with Galataport. Virgile was also persistent, so I think from both sides, there was intent and it was just about coming up with the right deal for all of us.”
The main operating space is 1500 square metres and currently features five works from Excurio, who they see as the core of the LBVR market. Because Excurio’s pieces are designed along the same pathways, it is possible to have multiple pieces running at the same time, so people have a choice of experiences and don’t have wait months to try a new one. Müzeverse offers the experiences in English, French and Turkish – for the latter, they translate and voice the script using local talent, which is then integrated into the piece by Excurio.
LBVR is about the entire experience, from first advertisement to walking out the door
Now open a year and a half, it’s clear there is a market for these types of experiences.
“I read the entire LBVR is a $2.9 billion market, and it’s projected to grow three folds by 2030 so obviously there’s appetite. The customers are coming. If you give them a positive experience, from the point they interact with your content online to their experience in-person, we know they’ll come back.”
Rehman stresses the entire visitors’ experience, from the time they buy the ticket or walk into the venue, what it smells like, how they were greeted, how they were onboarded into VR. “The content is obviously a big part of it, how they felt during the experience, how they felt when they left. We really started to tighten the screws around our operational choke points to make sure that we’ve limited the number of tickets per time start. Essentially, we brought it down, because it’s not about revenue maximization. It’s about sustainability. How can you sustain yourself for a longer period? We can maximize a profit, and not care about the experience, but you’ll see that in the Google reviews.”
“It’s an experiential product. And if you can’t envision that for your customer, then you will fail. So every day is learning for us, we’re always evolving.”
Upstairs from the main LBVR space is an 800 square metre mezzanine, which they’re planning to use for more traditional VR experiences – more artistic content, shorter term, smaller format, ~15-20 minutes. They just signed an agreement with Unframed Collection to be its exclusive sub-distribution partner in Türkiye.
“Some people prefer the standalone stuff, it’s a lot more immersive because you’re not walking around, you’re in your chair. You don’t have to interact with your family or your friends, it’s not so loud. They are different experiences,” Rehman points out.
“Once we have that space, we’ll have more artistic leverage, freedom to do more things. We’ll be going to all kinds of exhibitions, meeting artists, doing smaller exhibitions with them over here. Because we need content to feed the whole thing. We believe in the technology, we believe in VR storytelling, even the artistic, experimental stuff.”
Overall, they found their niche and built for it. They now employ 60 people, which they couldn’t have imagined: “Two foreigners who have zero network, to build a company and within a year and a half, have 5x their staff and the most premium location in Istanbul, maybe the country?”
Müzeverse’s goal was for 60% B2C, direct to customer, and 40% B2B, mostly schools and businesses, and since coming to Galataport in December 2025, they’ve hit those numbers. B2C customers are mainly on the weekends and holiday season, and schools are on the weekdays. “These are the two essential segments,” explains Rehman. “Tourists are seasonal, which is coming. We have a great marketing team at Galataport, so they’re collaborating with us very closely to be able to create that funnel as well. In the end, we’d like to be 40% B2C, 20% tourists and 40% B2B. The only other thing to be desired is bringing in more businesses through their internal benefit systems. So employees can get discounts for themselves and their families to come on weekends. We’d also like to do sponsorships and work with different companies to do sponsored events, galas and smaller activities over the course of the year.”
Building a VR market in Türkiye
For a new market like Türkiye, Müzeverse has done well. Rehman sees people responding to the content, the technology, and the experience.
“Istanbul has a lot of history, and cultural history. There is a culture of going to museums and watching artistic and cultural content. I don’t see a difference, essentially, whether it’s LBVR or standalone art. We also have people coming in from outside of Istanbul. They saw it online and wanted to see it, so there’s definitely interest there.”
“As far as the VR part, because it’s new and because the content is cultural, they’re happy to come. They want their kids to be exposed to this new technology and this type of content, because it’s better than being stuck to your phone and watching all kinds of trash. Parents here are more open to VR than I would imagine in Europe. The city government is quick to pick up on the fact that millennials and celennials are looking for newer forms of content consumption and ways to learn.”
To help widen the VR landscape in the city, they are collaborating with other venues, such as the city’s Digital Experience Center. To complement the museum’s projection mapping experience about Van Gogh, Müzevere has licensed them the VR experience VAN GOGH’S PALETTE. They’ve sold around 20,000 tickets so far just for that experience.
This initial collaboration (VAN GOGH’S PALETTE) with Unframed led to their relationship as exclusive partners, which will allow them to develop multiple joint collaborations showcasing in-house projects produced by Lucid Realities and external projects from the extended Unframed collection. Alexandre Roux, Director of Strategy and Development, sees VR Future driving strong momentum in the VR market in Türkiye, and the partnership will allow them to build a long-term relationship fueled by trust and their shared ambition to accelerate the VR market and make immersive work accessible.
But there’s still resistance to the uptake of VR in gallery spaces, museums and other venues. Art spaces don’t see XR as art works, and aren’t equipped to deal with the technology, equipment or staffing of immersive experiences.
“One issue is the snob factor,” Rehman says, “but I think that part can be overcome, it’s a change of perception. But another is that they’ve haven’t tried it before themselves, or they’ve tried it somewhere else and it has not been good, especially here in Türkiye.”
The market’s future will depend on a dependable – and creative – content stream
On that front, Müzeverse strives to deliver a quality experience in form and content, but this also hinges on good experiences being available. Rehman is still concerned that they will lack content.
“When we went to the Curator’s Network at Cannes last year, there were all these amazing projects that I saw, but they were all pivoting more towards projection mapping and the tactile stuff as opposed to LVBR. LBVR is in its early days, but it’s coming to its maturity. Excurio alone has 35 venues. I think in another few years, you will have enough venues pop up around the world that you could build content for, not a game that you would have to market on the Meta app store to get people to download and subscribe to, but direct to market with operators like us, where people are actually paying in cash, and you can have repeat visitors if your content is good. There are developers out there who don’t have jobs and are looking for ways forward for their studios to make revenue. I think LBVR is a really cool place for them to pivot to.”
“We have to accept the fact that Excurio is leading the VR market worldwide,” says Mangiavillano. “Every studio, every creator has to face this, understand it, and somehow collaborate with them. Having such a leader, it’s a chance for everyone, for the sector. They’re opening the platform to other studios, to other content. So if we collaborate, and if artists make work interoperable and compatible with their platform, you can show your content here, at Müzeverse.”
Excurio can only produce a few experiences a year, this year probably only one and not until later in the year. “Imagine us not having enough content to feed our venues? That’s not sustainable for us [to wait nine months for a new piece],” says Rehman. “That’s a problem that Excurio recognizes. They’re opening the platform to other creators, so if a studio has 10 LBVR experiences that they made before, they can integrate them.”
Mangiavillano encourages artists to align to this model. “We need to join efforts. This model is successful, the platform opening would be a big milestone for the industry. Excurio is the Netflix of the XR industry…Let’s say 80% of the LBVR content will be available on the platform at the end of the year…”
“And then we are spoiled for choice,” says Rehman, “and instead of releasing one experience every three months, we can release one every month.”
This would essentially pivot them from cultural experiences to the entertainment segment. “I think Excurio be selective in the beginning, and eventually, once the pipelines have been created, they’ll open it up for anyone to essentially build and put on it,” Rehman says. “We’ll have all these genres of experiences. Then it’ll be our choice as distributors and operators – what we like it, we license it. And for the licensing, every ticket we sell, the creator will get a royalty. Otherwise it’ll stagnate. The content will become stale… It’s growing together.”
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