Magic Leap said Tuesday that it raised 4 million in new funding in a round led by Alibaba Group, confirming earlier speculation that the secretive augmented-reality company was raising a large new round of funding.
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Magic Leap is spending plenty of money on other things as well, like building a team that includes some notable names, such as science-fiction author Neal Stephenson, who’s the company’s chief futurist, and longtime video-game developer Graeme Devine, who’s its chief creative officer.
Magic Leap hasn’t released a consumer version of its augmented reality tech.
Qualcomm Ventures, which invested originally with Google, continues its investment in the new round.
Alibaba’s executive vice chairman Joe Tsai said he believes Alibaba can both lend support and learn from Magic Leap.
Calling its technology “mixed reality”, a combination of virtual and simulated reality, the company is reportedly creating a headset that would use a type of light-field technology to simulate 3-D images superimposed on the real world by projecting patterns of light to the eye.
Dania Beach-based Magic Leap has built a head-mounted gadget that overlays animated content over the real world. But that was before this latest round of funding for Magic Leap was announced. Our design team has fully embraced the possibilities of this new frontier. The videos posted here and here should give you an idea of what Magic Leap is cooking up. “We are excited to welcome Alibaba as a strategic partner to help introduce Magic Leap’s breakthrough products to the over 400 million people on Alibaba’s platforms”. “This investment will accelerate bringing our new Mixed Reality LightfieldTM experience to everyone”, said Rony Abovitz, founder, president and CEO of Magic Leap, in a statement.
Magic Leap’s mission is to merge the real world and the digital world seamlessly, and now they have even more spending cash to make that possible. The company also has locations in Santa Cruz, Los Angeles and Mountain View, Calif.; Seattle; Austin, Texas; the United Kingdom; and New Zealand.
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In 2104 it completed a $542 million Series B financing, which was led by Google Inc. As we reported a year ago, the round will include money from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which hadn’t backed the company before, but is now on the hunt for big investing opportunities.
