We are excited to announce that OXR has been selected for the Summer 2026 East Lansing cohort of the Conquer Accelerator, operated by Spartan Innovations and the Michigan State University Research Foundation. As part of the program, Mixel Studio has also secured a $20,000 investment to support OXR’s continued growth.
For us, this milestone represents much more than admission to another accelerator. It creates a new bridge between OXR and the broader Michigan innovation ecosystem—connecting our work with entrepreneurs, educators, researchers, investors, and institutional partners across the state.
Building a More Accessible Way to Communicate in 3D
OXR is a cross-device spatial presentation platform developed by Mixel Studio Inc. It helps teams transform CAD models, 3D assets, images, audio, and other digital content into interactive spatial presentations that can be experienced through web browsers, tablets, interactive displays, XR headsets, and emerging AR devices.
Instead of requiring a specialized development team to build every immersive experience, OXR gives educators, designers, engineers, and subject-matter experts a familiar, presentation-style workflow.
Users can create spatial scenes, organize them into slides, present the content live, publish self-guided experiences, or embed projects directly into a website or learning management system. OXR can also track engagement data such as project launches, clicks, and time spent exploring published experiences.
Our goal is to make spatial computing practical—not only as a technology demonstration, but as a repeatable communication tool for education, workforce training, engineering, museums, and other professional environments.
Why Conquer Matters to OXR
OXR is one of five companies selected for the 2026 East Lansing cohort. The program places us alongside founders working across artificial intelligence, infrastructure, mobility, and advanced technology.
Conquer is part of a much larger support system operated through the MSU Research Foundation. That ecosystem includes Spartan Innovations, Red Cedar Ventures, Michigan Rise, MSU research and corporate partnership resources, regional SmartZones, and connections to universities, portfolio companies, healthcare organizations, and innovation hubs across Michigan.
Through Conquer, founders can receive support in business development, market research, fundraising, non-dilutive funding, customer discovery, and investor readiness. The program also creates direct pathways to MSU professors and programs, Conquer alumni, and companies within the MSU Research Foundation portfolio. Each East Lansing company is additionally supported by a dedicated Conquer Accelerator Program Fellow.
The program’s previous companies have demonstrated strong outcomes: 42% have raised additional funding after Conquer, and participating startups have historically raised an average of $35 for every $1 initially invested through the program.
More Than the $20,000 Investment
The $20,000 investment provides meaningful capital for an early-stage company. We plan to use this support to accelerate customer discovery, refine our go-to-market strategy, strengthen the OXR platform, and advance new institutional pilots.
However, the larger value is the opportunity to develop relationships that can continue beyond the accelerator. Through the program, we hope to:
Expand OXR’s education partnerships.
We are actively exploring how OXR can support virtual schools, online education providers, universities, and workforce-development programs. The Conquer network creates opportunities to learn from and potentially collaborate with organizations such as Michigan Virtual and other education partners across the state.
Build connections with Michigan industry.
OXR can help architecture, engineering, manufacturing, and technical teams turn complex models into accessible spatial presentations for design reviews, customer demonstrations, training, and public engagement. We hope to connect with more Michigan companies that are ready to explore these applications.
Prepare for responsible growth and future investment.
The MSU Research Foundation ecosystem provides access to experienced venture professionals, non-dilutive funding resources, and potential follow-on capital pathways. This will help us strengthen the business fundamentals required to scale OXR beyond individual pilots.
Building OXR Through Michigan’s Connected Ecosystem
OXR’s journey has already been deeply shaped by Michigan. One of our earliest major milestones was winning the University of Michigan’s James A. Kelly Learning Levers Grand Prize, which provided $10,000 to support the platform’s development. We then brought OXR into real learning environments through pilots at Detroit Country Day School and the University of Michigan School of Education, where educators and students tested how spatial presentations could support classroom instruction. We also introduced OXR to families and community audiences during VIP Nights at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. Each of these real-world deployments gave us valuable insight into accessibility, interaction, teacher workflows, and student engagement—helping us continuously iterate and move OXR from an early prototype into a commercial platform with active customers and institutional partners.
Joining Conquer extends that journey into another important part of the state’s entrepreneurial network. It gives us an opportunity to build relationships across institutional boundaries and to connect the strengths of Ann Arbor, East Lansing, Detroit, Grand Rapids, and other Michigan innovation communities.
We are grateful to the Spartan Innovations and MSU Research Foundation teams, including Jeff Wesley, Tom Stewart,Bradley Matson, Becky Roman, and Jermale Eddy, everyone who welcomed the 2026 cohort during orientation. We are also excited to work with our Conquer Accelerator Program Fellow, Gauravi Limbole, throughout the program.
The next 10 weeks will be focused on learning, testing, building, and forming partnerships that can create long-term value. We are not simply building OXR in Michigan. We are building it with Michigan.
Mixel Studio, Inc. is a Michigan-based XR company building OXR, a spatial presentation platform that helps teams create, manage, and present immersive 3D content across web browsers, mobile devices, XR headsets, and future AR glasses. OXR is designed to make spatial communication accessible, scalable, and easy to deploy.
