MORE than a million dollars has been raised by a start up firm with plans to bring smell to the metaverse.

Rapid technological development over the past 20 years has transformed the art of the possible for digital interaction.

VR has brought 360 degrees vision and sound, and other advances in tech have even made the sense of touch possible for those wearing haptic suits.

But smell remains a sense yet to be fully realised for those using digital platforms.

Now, OW Smell Digital hopes to help change that and make it an important part of metaverse experiences.

Leading scientists Emanuela Maggioni and Marianna Obrist have raised $1.3million to help develop the necessary software and hardware.

Maggioni said: “We are looking to interrupt a marketplace dominated by technologies reliant solely on sound, vision and increasingly, touch.

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“Our sense of smell has the power to evoke long-forgotten memories, bring food to life, calm us down and enrich our lives.

“We create smell technologies that can be used across a range of innovative contexts.

“From leading healthcare research to artistic and immersive experiences, our products offer a total digital command over scent and smell.”

The scientists are creating a digitally controlled multi-channel “Scent Delivery Device” powers by AI.

Made up of 24 individual odour channels, the hardware will be able to recreate smells to coincide with visual settings.

Although the OW Smell Digital has not teamed up with any individual metaverse, in theory, its new tech will be able to be used by a whole range of VR platforms.

The company describes their new product as “kind of photoshop for smell”.

OW Smell Digital said it hopes to one day be “for smell what Dolby and Adobe are to sound and vision”.

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