Crafting a new reality.

Auki Labs makes products that allow people to

create, own, inhabit and interact with virtual worlds and
objects anchored in reality.

Our decentralized peer-to-peer positioning system will give

every cubic millimeter an address, replace the GPS system,
and enable a persistent AR metaverse.

We are on a mission to help every person and device find

their place in the world. Literally.
FOREWORD:
THE METAVERSE BLACKPAPER
There is much hype about the coming metaverse, and
our impending migration to the digital domain.
I grew up on the internet, and on a literary diet of hard
science fiction and cyberpunk, so I am no stranger to
the idea. Technology is starting to catch up with our
dreams, but there is much work to be done before we
collectively take the plunge.
Countless copy-paste whitepapers wax poetic about a
future that is very easy to imagine, but exceedingly
difficult to build. Some projects have raised tens of
millions of dollars to build things that are ultimately
impossible without revolutionary changes to
underlying protocols that few even examine.
Although we can all envision a future where people
can own virtual real estate in a persistent augmented
reality layer on top of the world, the reality is that the
state of the art can’t even produce reliable shared
experiences.
Selling virtual real estate in AR today is akin to selling
real estate on Mars - so be sure to ask yourself what
skills they have in rocketry.
This is not another whitepaper. This is a pragmatic
look at where we are today, why augmented reality has
failed to live up to expectations, and the long journey
ahead.
I don’t believe we will abandon the physical world to
go live out our lives behind heavy VR headsets,
without physical connections to each other.
When the metaverse comes, it will be in the shape of a
persistent augmented reality layer on top of the world
where we are free to create and inhabit all the castles
of the imagination.
People have a fundamental desire to annotate the
world and add meaning and depth to objects, to share
information, and to enhance their everyday experience
using technology.
But reality is something we inhabit together, and our
intersubjective experiences is what makes the world
feel both meaningful and real.
We believe that AR must become social, persistent and
precisely positioned to live up to its name, so that
people can truly augment the reality we inhabit
together.
In this document we will try to outline our vision for
how to achieve this future, and tell you why we
believe we’ve got the wherewithal to take us there.
We’ll explore what’s wrong with augmented reality
today, what it could be like tomorrow, and what will
need to be built for us to get there.
You’ll get to familiarize yourself with our team, and
our roadmap, and hopefully see that we’re not like the
myriad of other projects that clutter this space.
If you’re interested in learning more about the future
of the metaverse, persistent AR and spatial computing,
then you’ve come to the right place.
Welcome to the metaverse blackpaper. We look
forward to sharing our thoughts with you.
-Nils Pihl, CEO
 *Pokemon GO by Niantic Studios.
All rights belong to the respective owners.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH

AUGMENTED REALITY?
 *Pokemon GO by Niantic Studios.
What’s wrong
WHAT’S WRONG with
WITHAR? All rights belong to the respective owners.

AUGMENTED REALITY?

AR IS NOT SOCIAL
It is prohibitively difficult to share an AR experience with other participants.

SLOW CALIBRATION
The current state-of-the-art method of collaborative depth map/digital twin
calibration takes 20-60 seconds, creating a large barrier to entry for joiners.

DISCREPANT POSITIONING
As a result of the fuzziness of the depth maps, participants can only place
the AR world with a relative precision of several centimeters.

SMALL SPACES
The leading provider of shared AR experiences only supports a maximum of
8 participants.
 *Conceptual rendering.
All rights belong to the respective owners.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH
AUGMENTED REALITY?

NO EMBODIMENT
Objects in virtual worlds can only be interacted with through digital
interfaces. You are not embodied in the virtual world. Lacking gesture and
body tracking means the world does not interact with you.

WALLED GARDENS
Experiences in AR are not interoperable, meaning you always have to
choose which narrow augmentation of the world you wish to apply.

AR IS EXHAUSTING AND JARRING

From slow calibration, to indirect and inefficient interfaces, to lacking
intersubjectivity – augmented reality quickly goes from exhilarating to
exhausting.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH
AUGMENTED REALITY?

Positioning
AR is
Networking
neither
social nor Embodiment
interactive
Interoperability
 *Conceptual rendering by Artur Sadlos.
All rights belong to the respective owners.

PREDICTING THE
FUTURE OF REALITY
 *Conceptual rendering.
All rights belong to their respective owners.

THE HANDHELD
ERA
Humanity has one foot in the doorway. Even with all its limitations,
augmented reality has captured our imagination. In this handheld era, AR is
accessed through a digital looking glass offering us a narrow window into
the augmented realm. We are limited in our ability to interact with both the
real and the virtual, having only one hand free for either.

In the handheld era of augmented reality, we are on the outside looking in,
seeing the world through a narrow peephole with one hand always tied
behind our back.

Our handheld devices have only a rough sense of their position in either
world, and shared AR experiences are warped by the dissonant perception of
each participant.

And yet we dream. The market is already estimated to have grown to well
over 20 billion dollars annually.
 *AR goggles by MAD Gaze.
All rights belong to their respective owners.

THE WEARABLE
ERA
We have opened the doors of perception and planted both feet firmly on the
other side. With both hands free to interact with the real world, the barrier to
entering virtual worlds is drastically lowered.

Primitive gesture tracking and simple single user applications gradually give
way to more immersive and interactive experiences that can be shared with
friends.

Networks of devices and people orient themselves in the virtual world

together, and parts of the virtual world are starting to become persistently
anchored in the real world.

As people spend more time in the augmented world, we start adding the
virtual to our identity. Increasingly, how we are seen in these semi-virtual
worlds becomes a reflection of how we see and express ourselves.

The market for AR is estimated to reach 340 billion USD by the year 2028.

*Conceptual rendering of augmented reality. All

rights belong to their respective owners.
 *AR lens concept by mojo vision.
All rights belong to the respective owners.

THE INTEGRATED
ERA
We spend more time in the augmented world than we do in the information
sparse desert we once called reality.
Objects in the world are much more than tactile and visual in the integrated
era of augmented reality. Depths of information and human emotion is
projected onto the canvas of the augmented world.
Many layers of virtual worlds are firmly anchored and persistent, and people
choose which layer of the world they wish to inhabit. Vast worlds of virtual
real estate are bought and sold, creating a market bigger than that for
physical space.

Our own identity and how we view those around us is inextricably linked
with the personas we have crafted for ourselves. We have reshaped our
civilization and have collectively embarked on a journey towards a new
destiny for our species.

The word “market” no longer meaningfully captures the immense impact

that augmented reality has on humanity.

*Conceptual rendering of augmented reality. All

rights belong to their respective owners.
*Interactive advertising in Blade Runner 2049.
All rights belong to their respective owners.

DEATH OF THE DISPLAY

The wearable era starts ushering in the end of physical displays. Persistent
and precise augmented reality makes the digital display redundant, and
allows for all content to be personalized.

By the dawn of the integrated era the notion of physical displays is already
becoming anachronistic and quaint. Computers are sold without displays,
and no one has owned a television set for years.

VIRTUAL KINGDOMS
The rendering rights for physical spaces can be bought and sold, creating a
potential trillion dollar market. Rendering in the augmented world is
regulated and monitored.

ADVERTISING REINVENTED
Personalized ads can appear virtually in physical spaces, generating new
revenue opportunities for business owners. Impressions can finally be
tracked in the physical world, and every advertising opportunity is
optimized.
 *Concept rendering of a vertical city.
All rights belong to their respective owners.

LEAVING
FLATLAND
As our cities grow bigger, they reach up towards the heavens and deep
underground. Two-dimensional maps and representations of the physical
world no longer make sense. Human settlements are measured
volumetrically rather than by area.

The GPS system is relegated to an obscure backup protocol, inaccessible

within the towering urban landscapes. Location needs to be expressed as a
position in space.

Vast fleets of automated vehicles and delivery drones navigate these

complex and crowded three-dimensional environments at incredible speeds.
Human pilots are the exception rather than the rule.

The positioning and mapping protocol of the future is peer-to-peer,

collaborative, terrestrial and fast.
 *Concept rendering by Alex Feliksovich
All rights belong to their respective owners.

SOLVING FOR [X, Y, Z]

Before any of these visions of the future can materialize, there is a massive
problem that needs to be tackled: spatial computing.

The foundational problem at the heart of the future AR metaverse is that

electronic devices only have a vague sense of their literal place in the world,
making them unable to reach a consensus about how to navigate or even
render the metaverse.

For a persistent AR layer to be constructed on top of the world, one must

first solve the problem of positioning. There’s no way around it. GPS will
never suffice, as it needs line of sight and won’t work in dense urban
environments or indoors. The nature of WiFi or Bluetooth frequencies
means that triangulation can never reach the required accuracy.

Devices must know their exact 3D coordinate, not just a rough

approximation of their longitude and latitude, to be able to enter the
metaverse.

To build the AR metaverse, you must first replace the GPS and solve the
problem of spatial computing.

*Conceptual rendering of augmented reality. All

rights belong to their respective owners.
*Concept rendering by Getty.
All rights belong to the respective owners.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH

SPATIAL COMPUTING?
*GPS satellite by Gary Cope.
All rights belong to their respective owners.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH WHAT’S WRONG WITH
SPATIAL COMPUTING? SPATIAL COMPUTING?

THE BLIND PURSUIT OF VISION

In a desperate arms race to solve the trillion dollar spatial computing
problem, everyone from Apple, Google and Microsoft to Snap, Niantic and
Meta are embracing the digital twin approach to device positioning.

Billions of dollars are already being deployed, and dozens of acquisitions

are being made, to try to recreate a 1:1 digital copy of the world that,
combined with computer vision, can help devices find their place in the
world.

But is their approach sound? The strategy will take many years to
materialize, and is incredibly vulnerable to disruption. Read more.
*Conceptual rendering.
All rights belong to the respective owners.
 *Concept by Geoffrey Vaudou.
All rights belong to the respective owners.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH
SPATIAL COMPUTING?

CROWDSOURCED PRIVACY VIOLATIONS

The digital twin has to be crowdsourced, but who owns the rights of 3D
scanned interiors of our homes and offices? How comfortable are we with
surveillance capitalists monetizing our most intimate spaces?

SERFDOM AS A SERVICE
We are not being compensated by these large corporations for participating
in the crowdsourcing efforts of the digital twin.

COMPLEX STITCHING
A crowdsourced digital twin will be very difficult to stitch together, and any
imprecision in the stitching is inherited by the positioning. How does one
solve the chicken and egg problem of creating a precise map without precise
positioning?

THE INTERNET OF THINGS LEFT BEHIND

How will devices without cameras access this new positioning paradigm?
We do not believe a system that neglects IoT can truly win the spatial
computing arms race.
 *Conceptual rendering by Ash Thorp.
All rights belong to the respective owners.

THE AUKIVERSE:
A MEASURED RESPONSE
ENTER THE AUKIVERSE
The Aukiverse is a foundational protocol for shared augmented reality
experiences, with advanced probabilistic consensus algorithms for
positioning. Apps connected to the Aukiverse become interoperable with
each other, and participate in building up the neospatial P2P positioning
network that will ultimately replace the geospatial GPS system.
The goal of the Aukiverse is to create an Internet of AR, allowing developers
and participants to access a rich tapestry of augmented reality tools and
experiences.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
By installing the Aukiverse SDK applications gain the ability to create
ephemeral peer-to-peer sessions of shared AR and neospatial positioning.
Connected applications arrive at a relative positioning consensus, rather than
relying on the imprecise GPS signal. To do this, participants first establish a
network connection and then exchange real-time SLAM positioning data
that is converted into a shared neospatial coordinate system.
To access the Aukiverse, the participant (or the app developer) must pay a
miniscule entry fee in $AUKI tokens at the moment of entry and calibration.
The entry fee is distributed between the infrastructure provider, the
calibration provider, any 3rd party content providers, and the foundation
managing the protocol.
THE $AUKI TOKEN
Use of the Aukiverse protocol will be pay-as-you-go, making sure app
developers and participants only pay for what is strictly necessary. We
believe that traditional SaaS models are a relic of the Web2 era, and that the
Aukiverse protocol will operate more efficiently with a token model that
allows people to control their expenses in a transparent and trustless fashion.
The $AUKI token will be used to pay for infrastructure usage, calibration,
content, and protocol maintenance, but can also be earned by assisting in the
operation and mapping of the Aukiverse.
MAP-TO-EARN
We believe that consumers should be rewarded for their participation in the
mapping of the Aukiverse and the creation of digital twins, so we’re creating
a map-to-earn program that will allow people to earn rewards for mapping
out the world, and validating previous measurements.
Consumers and businesses will be able to purchase and own Aukiverse
Lighthouse NFTs - physical calibration markers that serve as absolute
reference points that assist in calibration, and earn passive rewards whenever
these markers are used by a participating Aukiverse app.
The Lighthouse NFTs will be available for early adopters by the end of Q1.
AUKIVERSE SDK

Reinventing augmented reality

The powerful Aukiverse SDK allows app developers to effortlessly create social augmented
reality experiences. By providing turnkey multiplayer networking, instant calibration, a low-
latency asset cloud, cross-app interoperability, embodiment, and new ways to monetize
content, the Aukiverse SDK is an essential tool that addresses all the current pain points of
creating augmented reality experiences.

SDK COMPONENTS

Manna Hagall Ur Odal Fehu Dagaz

Positioning Networking Embodiment Interoperability Rewards Topology
 SDK COMPONENTS

Manna - Instant Calibration

Our patent pending instant calibration method gives

AR developers unprecedented ability to create social
experiences. Peer-to-peer positioning ensures
Mathr - Human,
ability, intelligence
relevant relative positioning without awkward or time
consuming preparations.

Hagall - Networking

Our bespoke distributed networking engine makes

developing spatial multiplayer experiences
effortless. Participants are automatically routed to
This live demo shows a prototype of the Matterless app, an interactive virtual pet experience,
Hagall - Hail, the most cost-efficient networking provider, who using the Aukiverse SDK to create a seamless social AR experience.
transformation earns tokens for hosting the networking service.
SDK COMPONENTS

Aukiverse - Live Demo

Three entirely different codebases (two mobile apps

and a web app) are calibrated into the same space, all
viewing the same art asset with synchronised
animations.

A third phone instantly calibrates into the space by

simply scanning a QR code on one of the other
devices.

The third phone is running a debug app that renders a

blank phone where each other phone is. This is not
done with computer vision, rather each phone is self-
reporting their position and orientation in the
Aukiverse.

The third phone spawns animated clocks into the

shared space, demonstrating the precision and
synchronization of the Aukiverse.
SDK COMPONENTS

Odal - Interoperability

No matter which Aukiverse app your friends are

using, you can seamlessly invite into your world. Our
sophisticated asset store keeps assets in a low-latency
Odal - Heritage, cloud environment that makes it possible for all
estate, ancestry
Aukiverse apps to be interoperable.

Ur - Embodiment

Turnkey hand and body detection purpose-made for

rich AR interactions makes it easier than ever to
bring users into the virtual world. Embodiment in
The Aukiverse SDK allows you to interact with the world around you using your physical
Ur - Strength, the Aukiverse allows users to physically interact body. This pre-alpha footage of Ur demonstrates basic hand tracking.
physical power with objects, enriching the experience and
immersion.
 SDK COMPONENTS

Fehu - Rewards

Our map-to-earn API allows app developers to

discover Aukiverse mapping tasks, so they can
mobilize their user base to earn tokens by doing
Fehu - Wealth,
prosperity, cattle
validating measurements or capturing 3D data for a
crowdsourced digital twin.

Dagaz - Topology

The Dagaz component captures and reconstructs

the environment for both ad hoc sharing and
persistent digital twins, allowing AR experiences to
Dagaz - Day, sunrise be more accurately positioned and more faithfully
and vividly rendered.
2022 Roadmap
Token Utility and Launch Fehu 1.0
AUKI can be used to pay for 3rd party Aukiverse apps
the service, and earned by can earn AUKI tokens by
providing support. doing mapping tasks.
TOKEN LAUNCH

APPLICATION
Surveyor Beta Surveyor 1.0
App for creating, mapping and Earn AUKI rewards for
TECHNOLOGY managing Domains through the mapping and improving domain
placement of Lighthouses. topology.

Rightful Ruler 2.0 Topology Capture Beta WebXR SDK 1.0

Sports grade precision measurements The Dagaz module captures, Make web AR apps that
and AR live streaming tools for tabletop shares and persists bounded connect to the Aukiverse
gaming. planes within Domains without running native code.

Unity SDK 1.0 Unreal SDK 1.0 Environment Reconstruction 3rd Party Explorer
Closed beta (20 apps) of the Closed beta (20 apps) of the Polygonal depth mapping, Remotely explore Aukiverse
Auki SDK for Unity. Auki SDK for Unreal higher resolution topology. domains and spaces on web.

Jan 2022 Apr 2022 Jul 2022 Oct 2022 Jan 2023
 MEET THE CYBERPUNKS
We have assembled an absolutely world-class team of veteran operators and
engineers that have helped build some of the most incredibly advanced and
scalable systems out there.

Every single person on the Auki Labs team is an expert in their field, with a
long list of accomplishments to their name, and now we are joining forces to
tackle one of the biggest and most audaciously difficult engineering tasks of
this century.

THE TEAM We earned our battle scars building scalable and real-time systems at
companies like Apple, Daimler, Google, Microsoft, KaiOS, Tantan and
Lalamove, and we’ve built everything from robotics operating systems and
neural interfaces to real-time social apps with over 20 million active users
and advanced predictive analytics for Fortune 100 companies.

We’re a distributed team, true metaverse natives, recruiting only the top
talent from all over the world - and we are unified by the belief in our
mission: Helping every person and device find their place in the world.
MEET THE CYBERPUNKS
Nils Pihl
Founder & CEO
Serial entrepreneur and recognized thought-
leader in user engagement, Nils helped
popularize memetics as a tool for
understanding and driving behavior in the
digital era.
From Apple to the World Bank, he’s been
enlisted by titans and startups alike to
decode behavior and drive change.
Cyberpunk credentials:
Helped give a primate direct neural control
of a computer game in 2009.
Crafted successful propaganda campaign
for Weibo that helped propel them from
50m to 500m active users.
Ted Östrem
Founder & CTO
A veteran of the highly competitive demo
scene of the early 2000s, Ted is an expert in
DevOps and scalable systems.
He’s been an integral part of building
everything from an OS for robotics to the
real-time auto-scaling infrastructure the
world’s 3rd largest dating app.
Cyberpunk credentials:
Award-winning hacker that came to China
on an Olympic athlete visa.
Holds a patent for using AI to detect human
emotions.
Santeri Aramo
Founder & COO
Forged in the furnace of international
luxury commerce, Santeri is a disciplined
management professional with expertise in
fashion, brand management and
merchandising.
Santeri manages our international
operations, stakeholders and partnerships.
Cyberpunk credentials:
Built a fully automated physical storage
startup, employing no staff.
 Dr. Steinberger
Algorithms
Internationally recognized expert in
cryptography and computational mathematics
from Tsinghua University, John is working on
the magic that underpins our positioning
consensus.
Cyberpunk credentials: Authored and
programmed automated digital tools for
learning calculus.
Dr. Gao
Computer Vision
A leading computer vision researcher from
the prestigious Jiaotong University in
Shanghai, Zhongpai leads the computer
vision efforts at Auki Labs.
Cyberpunk credentials: Uses psycho-visual
temporal manipulation to embed invisible QR
codes in digital media.
Dariusz
Unity SDK
A veteran of the digital entertainment
industry, Dariusz has made software and
games since the 90s. He leads the SDK
creation efforts at Auki Labs.
Cyberpunk credentials: Wrote games in
Assembly, and made his first augmented
reality game already in 2012.
Matthieu
Backend
Versatile fullstack engineer with expertise in
blockchain and DevOps. Matthieu is building
the massively scalable services that will
handle shared positioning and interoperability
in the AR metaverse.
Cyberpunk credentials: Hacked and
distributed games on a private server he built
himself when he was only 14.
Tommy
Unreal SDK
Experienced XR engineer with a background
in biomedical computing. He leads the efforts
of connecting the Unreal engine and
ecosystem to the Aukiverse.
Cyberpunk credentials : Made a multiplayer
anatomy teaching app from scratch to show
CT scans in VR.
Oskar
Site Reliability
Infrastructure and DevOps wizard that’s kept
the lights on, at scale, for massive companies
like Tantan and Lalamove. Oskar manages the
uptime of the Aukiverse and its services.
Cyberpunk credentials: Founded and ran a
successful eSports community for a decade.
 Andy
Software
Passionate software engineer with expertise
in virtual world creation, precise and shared
augmented reality, and the Unity game
engine, Andy is coding our in-house
applications.
Cyberpunk credentials: Wrote Rightful
Ruler, the world’s first sports-grade AR
streaming tool for tabletop games.
Admir
Performance
With almost three decades of experience,
intimately involved in each iteration of the
web, Admir uses his deep understanding of
computer science and networking to optimize
Aukiverse performance.
Cyberpunk credentials: A natural machine
whisperer, Admir thrives at the deep level
where software meets hardware.
Agnes
Human Resources
Experienced HR manager with expertise in
international talent acquisition and
management, Agnes helps scale, cultivate and
operate the remote workforce of Auki Labs.
Cyberpunk credentials: Helped assemble
several world-class distributed engineering
teams.
John
Physical Products
Serial entrepreneur with two decades of
experience in eCommerce, sourcing and
production. John manages the production and
distribution at scale of the physical products
that anchor the Aukiverse.
Cyberpunk credentials: Founded and built a
smart fermentation oven that allows for
distributed production of complex food.
Curtis
Cybersecurity
Curtis is a senior infosec engineer with a
degree in cybersecurity, formerly with
Optimizely and Microsoft, where he honed
the skills to keep the Aukiverse protected and
safe from attacks and exploitation.
Cyberpunk credentials: From junior to
veteran at breakneck speed, Curtis emerged as
a leader on a team of 300.
Jose
Rendering Lead
Passionate computer graphics expert that has
been pushing the boundaries of AR since
2006. José has done everything volumetric
rendering for medical applications to
Hollywood visual effects.
Cyberpunk credentials: Building his 3rd
rendering engine from scratch. Made
automated digital avatars before it was cool.
MEET OUR PARTNERS

TRIBE CAPITAL
The future of augmented reality is not
speculative, but inevitable.

We need not ask ourselves if this

vision of humanity will come to pass,
but rather what part we will play in its
inception.

One day we will build and inhabit all

the castles of the imagination and
Auki Labs is on a mission to lay their
foundation.
In the cyberdelic future artists will rule, because the
world will be made of art.

-Terence McKenna, 1991