Team Syncanite

From this foundation, small stories began to emerge. Over time, Thöne wove them together into a full-length book, shaping the central narrative of FLUX – Zugzwang, which is enriched by numerous side stories and short tales.

After completing his secondary school diploma in 2014, Thöne attended the b.i.b. International College in Paderborn for a year, beginning his training as an Application Developer in Web and Games.

Though he chose to discontinue this training in 2015 in favor of pursuing his Abitur (higher education entrance qualification), this period laid the foundation for his knowledge in software, game, and web development.

The first version of the fantasy novel FLUX – Zugzwang was completed and made available to numerous test readers. Their feedback on both content and style was carefully considered and integrated into subsequent revisions, refining the story and enhancing its depth.

In order to connect with and understand the book and author scene, Thöne joined a number of associations. To this day, he is on friendly terms with the many great people from the Bundesverband für junge Autorinnen und Autoren (BVJA), the Westdeutscher Autorenverband (WAV), the BartBroAuthors, the Literaturraum Dortmund Ruhr, the Verband Deutscher Schriftsteller and many more.

Thöne first came into contact with blockchain technology through his contacts at b.i.b. International College. Together, he and friends bought Bitcoin via a fellow student’s wallet and used it to order a pizza – the most expensive pizza of his life. Thöne has been observing the scene and its technologies ever since.

Thöne’s diverse activities in the book and media industry brought him into contact with a large number of players in the scene. Thöne learned to pitch and would have been published by Simon Czaplok’s SCRATCH Verlag. FLUX – Zugzwang would have seen the light of day as a normal fantasy novel in the scene. But a change of ownership at the publishing house meant that a contract never materialized.

Thöne decided to take matters into his own hands and knew that he needed capital to self-publish “FLUX – Zugzwang”. Accordingly, he began to combine his ability to write texts with his interest in technology to earn his first money as a freelance copywriter and journalist. Over the years, THÖNE Digital Consulting was born.

Films such as “Matrix” and “Tron: Legacy” sparked Thöne’s interest in virtual worlds early on. Accordingly, in 2012 he followed Palmer Lucky’s Kickstarter campaign for the then start-up “Oculus”, which was later bought by Facebook – now Mark Zuckerberg’s meta-corporation. At Gamescom 2015 in Cologne, Thöne had the chance to test an Oculus Rift and seized it.

Thöne met the visual artist Sven Arne Klinger online. Klinger offered Thöne the opportunity to illustrate the world of Arkanite. As a result, Thöne and Klinger joined forces to produce a graphic novel under the name “Arkanite Productions” and began visualizing the world of Arkanite.

The collaboration was exclusively remote, as Thöne lived in Dortmund and Klinger in Leipzig. The two met in person for the first time at the 2019 Leipzig Book Fair and remain good friends to this day.

The world of Arcanite had grown to an immense size. In addition to book text, short stories and encyclopedia content, it now also included illustrations, animations and 3D. It became difficult to bring all this together without losing the common thread. Thöne therefore developed the concept of the “virtual pop-up book”.

This combination of analog and digital was intended to preserve the printed book and virtually outsource additional content such as illustrations, animations and short stories. Using a smartphone or tablet, the content was to be found virtually in the right place as virtual pop-ups in the book.

With the “Virtual Pop-Up Book” concept and the “World of Arkanite” content, Thöne took part in the “Start2Grow Business Plan Competition” organized by the Dortmund Economic Development Agency. The aim was to professionalize the ambitions around Arkanite Productions. The competition introduced Thöne to the German start-up scene and provided him with know-how on the subject.

Thöne came into contact with Markus Rall, the founder of viality AG, through the Dortmund Economic Development Agency network. Based in Dortmund Technology Park, the company has been designing tailor-made solutions for industry and commerce in the fields of virtual reality, augmented reality and other technologies since 2009.

Rall recognized the potential in the concept of the “Virtual Pop-Up Book” and opened up a path to implementation. As a result, viality sponsored the development of the prototype of a “virtual pop-up book” using the world of Arkanit as an example.

The contact with viality AG was also a perfect fit because the company itself was working on the topic of “storytelling with augmented reality” and was implementing a specific project: Benno Elkan was a Jewish artist from Dortmund who was unable to complete his memorial against the war during his lifetime. The Gibs design was lost and the photos of it were lost – until recently.

In collaboration with the Dortmund Historical Society and TU Dortmund University, viality AG has virtually reconstructed the memorial. Thöne was involved in the storytelling and PR concept for this project on a voluntary basis.

The unincorporated association “Deutsches Institut für virtuelle Realitäten (DIVR)” has been working on the opportunities and risks of virtual reality and related technologies for the German economy and society since 2015.

In 2018, Thöne came into contact with the leading figures of the unincorporated association through the Dortmund Economic Development Agency network and quickly took on a key role in the association’s activities, among other things to further develop his basic know-how in the field with regard to Arkanite Productions.

In January 2019, Thöne chaired the constituent assembly of the German Institute for Virtual Realities (DIVR e.V.) in room 23 of Messe Dortmund and co-founded the registered association. Since then, he has been a member of the extended board.

With our prototype of a “Virtual Pop-Up Book”, we won the “Special Innovation Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair” in 2019 and thus a WildCard for a trade fair stand in Leipzig. This confirmation of our work gave us great encouragement. In addition to many great contacts, the trade fair brought us a lot of feedback for our prototype, which was incorporated into the development of the product. Thöne and Klinger also met in person for the first time after a long collaboration on the project.

The competition for the title “Kultur- und Kreativpiloten des Bundes” takes place annually and honors entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative industries. We were nominated for this title and invited to the selection interviews and have been in contact with this network ever since. Our goal is to win the title when our project goes live.

The successes of 2019 led to an intensified collaboration between Thöne and viality AG. Specifically, the “Virtual Pop-Up Book” product was added to viality’s portfolio and Thöne was appointed as product owner. This gave Thöne the resources to implement projects relating to the expansion of print with augmented reality and earn money from them. This enabled him to invest further in the world of Arkanit and led, among other things, to the development and expansion of this website.

Every year, the RKI presents the “Built on IT” award to innovative projects in the construction industry under the patronage of the Federal Ministry of Economics. Thöne was involved in the design and implementation of the “XR-Buddy”, a VR sales station for retail with haptic components by viality AG, and thus won the award.

The momentum of 2019 was slowed considerably by the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It also led to losses in the primary pillars of Thöne and Klinger, which resulted in Klinger leaving the project. Thöne put investments on hold. Arkanite ran on the back burner.

Our prototype of a “virtual pop-up book” was very well received at the trade fairs in Leipzig and Frankfurt in 2019. However, only once the hurdle of installing an app had been overcome. With these findings and the possibilities of the software development kits from Apple and Google, called AR-Kit and AR-Core, we have developed web-based tools for the implementation of virtual pop-up books.

As Arkanite Productions was running on a low flame, the German Institute for Virtual Realities (DIVR e.V.) and his work at viality AG took up more and more space in Thönes’ everyday life. He was given more and more responsibility. He was soon advising Fortune 500 companies on all aspects of virtual reality, augmented reality, storytelling, etc. and implementing projects for these clients with viality.

In order to build a solid theoretical foundation alongside his start-up and professional career, Thöne decided to enrol in a part-time degree course at the International School of Management (ISM) in Dortmund. Until the end of 2023, Thöne will spend every Friday evening and Saturday at the university to further develop his management and finance skills.

We have turned the anniversary volume 3000 of the science fiction magazine novel series “Perry Rhodan”, which has been on newsstands for over 60 years, into a small “virtual pop-up book”. Specifically, we made it possible to experience the spaceship “RAS TSCHUBAI” virtually in space using a QR code via augmented reality. Combined with a photo campaign in which vouchers could be won, the spaceship “flew” virtually with fans from all over the world and recorded almost 22,000 views on all continents.

The “Marix” imprint of the Römerweg publishing house in Wiesbaden has been publishing the title “Jüdische Welt verstehen” (Understanding the Jewish World) by Alfred Kolatch for over 40 years. This book answers over 600 questions about Judaism and Jewish culture.

Through the German Institute for Virtual Realities (DIVR e.V.), Thöne wrote a funding application for a virtual pop-up book in the context of the celebrations surrounding “1700 years of Jewish life in Germany” and was granted funding from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to expand Mr. Kolatch’s book.

Jüdische Welt verstehen AR was presented to the public at the 2021 Frankfurt Book Fair. It is the first fully-fledged virtual pop-up book, as it has a web platform that can be used to access a variety of additional content (images, text, 3D, AR, sound) to supplement the book’s content.

At the end of 2021, Facebook changed its name to Meta Corporation and announced its ambitions for the metaverse to the whole world. Through his work at viality and his honorary position at the German Institute for Virtual Realities (DIVR e.V.), Thöne was always at the forefront of these developments.

Accordingly, the opportunities for the world of Arkanite in combination with the technologies and possibilities of the metaverse were explored and incorporated into the plans for the realignment of Arkanite Productions after the pandemic.

Every year, the IT Club Dortmund presents the “Sol-IT Award” to innovative IT and software solutions. Thöne won this award for a project with viality AG in the field of “Virtual Reality Training and Simulation.”

Content Shift is a start-up accelerator program of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association and helps young companies related to the book, media and creative industries to grow and scale their own business.

The two pilot projects from 2021, in combination with the developments around the Metaverse, have led to an invitation to pitch in Frankfurt. It is still too early for a collaboration, e.g. with regard to growth financing, but contacts have been made. We were delighted to receive the honor of the invitation and the award as a top 10 start-up and will stay tuned!

We all always knew that it was only a matter of time before our ambitions could be supported by the use of artificial intelligence. With developments around systems such as Open AI’s Chat GPT for text and images, the world of Arkanit received a boost. In addition, the global Covid 19 pandemic ended and with it the hibernation of Arkanite Productions.

The time is ripe for a comeback. Arkanite Productions is in the process of being officially founded as a corporation and is gathering old companions and new friends. Together we are committed to the goal of bringing the world of Arkanite 2024 to life via Kickstarter. Here’s to the next ten years!

Another contact from the old days was the founder of Kia Kahawa. The author supports publishers and authors in the professional production of books and contributes her expertise in the areas of editing, proofreading, typesetting, cover design, book printing, logistics and distribution to the project.

Rummaging around for “epic music” has always been part of the Arkanite project. Many such titles inspired this whole story in the first place. We are very pleased to announce that we have been able to win over Swiss composer Fabian Wiestner and FrameShift Music as partners for the project and that from now on we will also be making the world of Arkanite a reality in terms of audio.

A new coat of paint for a new era: “Arkanite” becomes Syncanite. This goes hand in hand with a complete realignment of our marketing and online presence. This website will remain here, but the new one is coming soon.

The cat is out of the bag: The world of Syncanite has its own board game! Syncanite Foundation will be presented to the public for the first time at the Kickstarter Prototype Area of the BerlinCon board game fair. The start of the promo phase for the first Kickstarter campaign in 2024 has officially begun!

It’s getting serious! With the founding of Syncanite GmbH, a limited company, we put the company on a completely new, much stronger footing. All Syncanite brand products are now produced and distributed by this limited company.

Syncanite GmbH’s business plan has won the StartUp Competition of the International School of Management (ISM). We would like to express our sincere thanks for this support and see our course confirmed. 2024 can come!

In cooperation with Azao Games, a Belgian manufacturer specializing in board game prototypes, the first prototypes of SYNCANITE FOUNDATION have been produced. Let the live playtesting begin!

In September 2024, Timon Thöne left viality AG and stepped down from his positions within DIVR e.V. in order to concentrate fully on SYNCANITE GmbH and expand the B2B business.

Following a series of events and hundreds of playtests, we ramped up the promotion of our board game in the fall. We attended over 28 events across Germany and Austria, collaborating with key influencers and industry multipliers to strategically prepare for the Go-to-Market phase.

After more than a decade, we finally made it! Our Kickstarter will go live on the 28tj of January 2025 and we cannot wait to finally show you our work!

This is a milestone for us: The first scalable consumer product:
SYNCANITE FOUNDATION – The Board Game