Xennial is building the XR platforms that are powering the future of healthcare, aviation, and education

By Riley Kaminer

Have you ever wanted to learn how to do something without actually doing it? Not in the sense of simply reading about it – but rather, immersing yourself into an environment that simulates exactly what it would like to do the thing.

Miami startup Xennial is helping us get one step closer to this reality. The company partners with enterprises to build and implement XR solutions – environments to deploy on virtual and augmented reality headsets. The best part: it’s all turnkey, slotting right into their clients’ current ERPs, authentication systems, and other IT infrastructure.

Douglas Fajardo [pictured above] is at the helm of Xennial. The Guatemalan native launched his career with IBM, having moved to New York in the early ’80s. “That’s how I got this passion for the convergence of technology and creativity,” he told Refresh Miami.

In 1994, Fajardo moved to Miami to co-found a tech marketing and communications firm. He would go on to buy out his co-founders and launch in a solo iteration in 1997 before selling the firm to multinational advertising giant WPP in 2005. He would stick with the company until 2018, when he split up with the company to launch Xennial.

Fajardo explained that Xennial is currently focused on serving three industries: aviation, healthcare, and higher education. In each of these verticals, Xennial works closely with their client to build VR/AR platforms – always with a training focus.

For example, one of Xennial’s clients is a leading global company for training aviation professionals. It has partnered with Xennial to enable students to partake in immersive training modules without risking expensive damages to the airplanes or student injuries. “They also don’t have to access that many planes,” Fajardo added, noting that having so many plans on hand can be costly.

On top of building solutions to fit particular clients’ needs, Xennial also sometimes productizes the platforms they build. They then offer these experiences to the public through a SaaS-style subscription offering while sharing the royalties with their initial client.

So what about the much-revered and reviled Apple Vision Pro? Fajardo has mixed feelings. “Apple coming into the industry brings a lot of attention to what we’re doing.” That said, the price point – almost 7x as expensive as the VR standalone devices Xennial uses – make it hard to justify for Xennial’s clients, who often end up buying hundreds of headsets for their workforce. “It’s a great consumer device, but it’s definitely not going to work in the near future for enterprise applications.”

Seven of Xennial’s 39 employees are based in South Florida. Fajardo signaled that hiring top talent can sometimes be difficult in Miami, primarily due to our lack of university programs feeding into the kinds of profiles Xennial is hiring. He acknowledged that this is changing, however. “In Miami we’ve created a good relationship with MAGIC,” a specialized organization – Miami Animation & Gaming International Complex – from Miami Dade College focused on fostering game development talent. In addition to two new employees sourced from this program, Fajardo shared that the company has recently hired an Florida International University student.

“We’re starting to focus on finding great talent here, and we’re excited to see what more our local universities have to offer in the future.”

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Riley Kaminer

I am a Miami-based technology researcher and writer with a passion for sharing stories about the South Florida tech ecosystem. I particularly enjoy learning about GovTech startups, cutting-edge applications of artificial intelligence, and innovators that leverage technology to transform society for the better. Always open for pitches via Twitter @rileywk or www.RileyKaminer.com.

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