Investors continue to bet on augmented reality, both for short-term returns and long-term plays. This week, Niantic reportedly picked up another round of funding from Samsung and others, based on the success of PokémonGO and the prospects for future revenue. Likewise, investors see value in WaveOptics, whose waveguide displays could make consumer smaller AR smartglasses possible within the next year.
Magic Leap's business strategy for bringing augmented reality to the mainstream has become even clearer via its latest funding round.
We may or may not see Apple's long-awaited take on AR smartglasses this year, but the company is more than getting its practice swings in with its current wearables business, which hit record revenue in 2019 according to financial results released this week.
Smartglasses are the future of augmented reality, and Samsung is betting on waveguide maker DigiLens to emerge as a leader in the growing AR wearable industry.
As much funding as Magic Leap has secured, another round of funding will still catch headlines. However, the latest funding solidifies the company's strategy for succeeding in the consumer segment of AR.
Although Niantic is already an augmented reality startup unicorn thanks to the success of Pokémon GO, the company has reportedly captured yet another round of funding.
Augmented reality optics maker WaveOptics has just infused its operations with a fresh round of funding to facilitate its objective of bringing consumer-grade smartglasses at a $600 price point to market in 2019.
With would-be unicorns Magic Leap and Niantic among its investments, Google is an active investor in augmented reality technology. This week, the search giant experienced both ends of the investment cycle, with an exit via Lyft's acquisition of Blue Vision Labs, and a funding round for Resolution Games.
After a $20 million funding round fell through, augmented reality headset maker Meta Company has been forced to furlough (or place on temporary leave of absence) approximately 65% of its workforce for 30 days.
For the augmented reality hardware industry to progress towards the consumer segment, display technology needs to get better. Investors recognize that, and they are showing AR display makers the money.
Four augmented reality companies made deals this week to grow their businesses. Two companies, TechSee and Car360, completed funding rounds, while DAQRI signed with a production partner and Decalomania landed a prime spot with a top retailer.
Augmented reality business followers, we've got good news and bad news. First, the good news: Upskill closed another round of funding, this time led by strategic investors Cisco and Accenture. (Well, this is probably bad news if you're competing with them on the enterprise AR front.)
The display is one of the most critical components in augmented reality hardware, and on Tuesday, one of the companies making that component, Avegant Corp., closed a funding round of $12 million to support development of next-generation AR displays.
With plans to compete with Niantic and other augmented reality game developers, game developer WarDucks has closed a $3.8 million funding round.
As the Notorious B.I.G. once said, via his hit single, "Mo Money, Mo Problems." However, it would appear that Magic Leap feels a bit differently about piling on the cash.
Despite its status as a hot commodity amongst emerging technologies, the augmented reality industry is not immune to the ebbs and flows that occur in every industry.
If competition in the augmented reality space was a spectator sport, then ARKit, ARCore, and HoloLens dominate the prime-time broadcasts on ESPN.
After a rough run of news, smartglasses maker North still has the confidence of investors, as evidenced by its latest round of funding.
With Pokémon GO as its cash cow and the forthcoming Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Niantic Real World Platform promising future revenue streams, Niantic has convinced investors to bet on its flavor of augmented reality
Fresh off shipping an augmented reality game for Magic Leap, Resolution Games has farmed another $7.5 million in funding through a Series B round.
Upskill, an enterprise software developer for industrial augmented reality applications, recently received an influx of funding and a major vote of confidence from two of their top customers.
It may sound like deja vu, but neural interface startup CTRL-labs has closed a $28 million funding round led by GV, Google's funding arm, for technology that reads user's nerve signals to interpret hand gestures.
On Thursday, Magic Leap decided to step up its efforts to foster its developer community by launching the Independent Creator Program.
The results of Microsoft's $480 million contract with the US Army are on display and users continue to test the suped-up version of the HoloLens 2.
The future of smartglasses for consumers seems ever dependent on Apple's entry into the market. Coincidentally, the exit of Apple's long-time design chief Jony Ive has shed some light on that eventual entrance.
This week's news that Magic Leap's patents had entered collateral limbo, now in the hands of JPMorgan Chase, threw a dark cloud over the company.
Despite the recent gut punch of staff layoffs, Canada-based smartglasses startup North and its Focals are likely to be in the game for a while longer.
Augmented and virtual reality motion tracking leader Leap Motion, Inc. announced that it has secured $50 million in Series C funding to fund expansion into new territories and industries.
The venture arms of Samsung and Verizon Ventures, along with Comcast, are among the strategic investors backing startup Light Field Lab and its glasses-free holographic displays in a $28 million Series A funding round
Four months have passed since Mojo Vision emerged from stealth, and we are no closer to seeing exactly what its "invisible computing" technology looks like.
The HoloLens has made enough of an impact on the healthcare industry for Microsoft technology partner Medivis to convince investors to pledge $2.3 million in funding for its surgical platform.
Another contestant has emerged in the race to deliver a mainstream augmented reality car navigation system, with Silicon Valley-based Phiar picking up $3 million in seed funding to launch its own artificial intelligence-based mobile app by mid-2019.
This week, two companies looking to capitalize on the growing augmented reality industry, raised funding from starkly different sources.
Over the past week, we are seeing more companies capitalizing on services leveraging augmented reality. One company secured funding to expand their service, while two other companies grow its own services through acquisition.
DigiLens, a company specializing in optical waveguide technology, recently announced that they had closed a $22 million round of strategic investment, also known as Series B funding. This round brought in Sony, Foxconn, Continental, and Panasonic, as well as more traditional venture investors such as Alsop Louie Partners, Bold Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners, and Dolby Family Ventures.
The week in AR business news started out with a bang with two bombshell reports that cast a shadow on the AR industry as a whole.
Is the augmented reality magic fading down in Plantation, Florida? That's the first question some may be asking following a casual revelation over the weekend that Magic Leap, the maker of the Magic Leap One, has assigned much of its patent portfolio over to JP Morgan Chase as collateral.
Smartglasses and AR headset makers like Microsoft, Magic Leap, and Google (and aspiring AR wearables makers like Apple and Snapchat) need display components for their products, and LetinAR is among the companies ready to supply those components.
Google's AI investment arm, Gradient Ventures, has joined a $10.5 million round of funding for Ubiquity6 and its platform for shared augmented reality experiences, just weeks after Google's GV fund backed a competing AR cloud platform.
In December of last year, UK-based Zappar successfully raise $84,356 for their ZapBox mixed reality headset—over $50,000 more than their goal. Well, they just blew that sum out of the water when they announced this morning that they've closed a Series A round of funding with $3.75 million.
