Magic Leap, a Florida-based company that makes augmented-reality technology, has announced that it will release its smartglasses later this year. The announcement came on Wednesday. The company also said that it has managed to raise additional funding for the project. An additional $461 million has been raised in this last round with $400 million coming from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment arm.
The funding was part of what Magic Leap is calling “Series D round of fundraising.” The company had earlier raised $502 million bringing the total investment to date under the Series D to $963 million. But Magic Leap has raised much more money for the smartglasses. So far, total investments gone towards these glasses now stand at $2.3 billion.
The smartglasses will be called Magic Leap One. They have been in development for quite some time now. The company made an announcement in December last year saying that it will release the first batch in 2018. The Wednesday announcement confirms this commitment.
Although it’s not yet clear whether the company will be raising more money for the smartglasses, based on the last round of the Series D fundraising, Magic Leap’s valuation stands at $6 billion. The investments in this company have been huge. It’s clear that investors see the value of the smartglasses and their application in today’s world.
A source close to the company says that Magic Leap is spending in excess of $50 million a month. This is a huge budget. In addition to developing the hardware, Magic Leap is also developing the required software to ensure the glasses work without any issue. The company will also develop the content that will run on the glasses. All these areas are critical to the success of the Magic Leap One smartglasses. In order for everything to work, the software, the content and the glasses themselves must all be ready at the same time. It’s no wonder that the company has raised so much money and is spending $50 million a month.
The only hope for investors is that once the new smartglasses are released, they will be in huge demand all around the world. Magic Leap has about 1,400 employees. The company has established offices in a number of cities including Florida where its main operating base is located. Other cities include Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, Zurich, Austin, and Sunnyvale. Magic Leap also operates in Israel and New Zealand.
The company is rated as one of the most promising startups to watch out for. Magic Leap is also the most well-funded startup in the augmented reality space. The growing optimism that the company would soon deliver a new era of augmented reality is justified. However, Magic Leap has not given any release date for the smartglasses. All we know so far is that 2018 will be the year.
