Fast Company’s 2026 Next Big Things in Tech list NAMES THREE honorees in its AR, VR, XR and Metaverse category: Dassault Systèmes, Excurio and Veyond Metaverse. Excurio and Veyond both announced the recognition on October 6, and trade coverage of the category write-up is still landing this week. The pattern is the STORY: an INDUSTRIAL design app, a LOCATION-BASED VR floor and a REMOTE-MEDICINE system. NOT ONE pick is a CONSUMER headset, a pair of GLASSES or a GAME.
Excurio: 130 People, One Room, Several Experiences
Excurio, the French studio behind Horizon of Khufu and Tonight with the Impressionists: Paris 1874, was RECOGNIZED for LBXR Pulse, its IN-HOUSE FREE-ROAM platform. According to the company’s October 6 release, the system hosts MORE THAN 130 participants at once, which Excurio calls TEN times the capacity of traditional VR systems and a “world record” for free-roaming VR. That record claim is Excurio’s OWN, and the release cites NO outside verifier.
The more USEFUL detail for OPERATORS is the MULTIPLEX model. LBXR Pulse runs SEVERAL experiences in PARALLEL inside the same physical space, so visitors can PICK different titles while sharing ONE floor. Excurio also says the platform adapts to IRREGULAR or HISTORIC venues, such as domes and museums, “without requiring extensive on-site testing.”
Scale figures: LBXR Pulse is in 40 VENUES across 17 COUNTRIES and has hosted OVER 5 MILLION visitors, with a TARGET of 50 venues across FIVE continents by early 2027. One INCONSISTENCY is worth flagging. The same release’s company boilerplate says “over 35 active venues,” so the venue COUNT depends on which paragraph you read.
Excurio opened the platform to OUTSIDE creators earlier in 2026. PHI Studio and Felix & Paul Studios were among the first, with Space Explorers: The ISS Experience. Fever’s Machu Picchu: Journey to the Lost City and Starstruck, made with the Smithsonian, also run on it. Next up is Excurio’s The Republic of Pirates in NOVEMBER, followed from 2027 by expeditions “inspired by legendary and iconic franchises,” NONE of which the company has NAMED. The VR Collective recapped the award on October 15.
“With LBXR Pulse, we’ve built a platform that removes many of the barriers that have historically limited location-based VR and gives operators and creators the tools to bring ambitious immersive experiences to more people, in more places around the world.”
Fabien Barati, CEO and co-founder, Excurio
Veyond Metaverse: A Remote Physician Beside a Ship’s Medic
San Francisco-based Veyond Metaverse was recognized for OceanMD, an XR TELEPRESENCE system for SHIPS, offshore sites and remote clinics. In its GlobeNewswire release, the company describes the workflow: the on-site medic WEARS an XR headset, and the remote physician SEES the same view live, marks up the scene, demonstrates technique with an interactive 3D equipment model and appears beside the medic as an AVATAR. The medic’s HANDS stay FREE.
The NETWORK claims are SPECIFIC. Veyond says its latest LIVE sessions carried real-time video, voice and visual guidance over a LOW EARTH ORBIT satellite link, and that OceanMD has also been tested over 4G and 5G. The DEPLOYMENT status is LESS advanced. Veyond is “now working with a leading global medical assistance provider to prepare OceanMD for PILOT deployments,” and it does NOT name that PARTNER. In other words, OceanMD is an HONOREE BEFORE it is a FIELDED product. Veyond also says it “runs on commercially available headsets,” but it does not say WHICH ones.
The market framing comes from the 2026 Seafarer Workforce Report by BIMCO and the International Chamber of Shipping, which Veyond cites: about 2.57 MILLION seafarers on MORE THAN 85,000 merchant ships, most of which RELY on SHORE-BASED doctors reached mainly by VOICE. Chief Medical Officer Prof. Dr. Thierry Flam, who the company says remotely guided live surgeries in Yangon from Paris in 2023 and from New York in 2024, put it BLUNTLY: “A video call gives a flat picture on a screen.”
Dassault Systèmes: The Only Pick Tied to Named Hardware
Dassault Systèmes is the one honoree attached to a SPECIFIC device: Apple Vision Pro. Its 3DLive visionOS app, announced on February 25, 2025 at the 3DEXPERIENCE Forum in Houston, brings VIRTUAL TWINS built on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform into the user’s PHYSICAL space for REAL-TIME visualization and TEAM collaboration. Dassault described the work as a “deep engineering-level collaboration” with Apple. Korean outlet Metanews, summarizing the Fast Company category, says Dassault was picked for letting engineers and designers VISUALIZE and VALIDATE hardware in a virtual space WITHOUT physical prototypes.
What the List Signals
Fast Company’s editor-in-chief, Brendan Vaughan, said in the Veyond release that the list FAVORS technologies that “move beyond promise to demonstrate real potential for impact.” In XR, the magazine located that impact in FACTORIES, VENUES and SHIPS rather than LIVING ROOMS. That fits a year in which consumer attention has been on Steam Frame, Meta’s VR Glasses and a wave of AI glasses.
The honors deserve CAREFUL reading. These are EDITORIAL recognitions, NOT AUDITED results, and the headline numbers come from the COMPANIES themselves: Excurio’s 130 concurrent users and “world record,” and Veyond’s satellite sessions ahead of a pilot with an unnamed partner. The NEXT checkpoints are CONCRETE. For Excurio, watch whether The Republic of Pirates OPENS in November and whether the venue count REACHES 50 by early 2027. For Veyond, watch whether a NAMED medical assistance provider puts OceanMD on a WORKING VESSEL.
Sources: Fast Company, Fast Company list, Excurio via Shore Fire Media, Veyond Metaverse via GlobeNewswire, Dassault Systèmes, The VR Collective, Metanews.