AR Investment

Meta Shows Confidence in EMG Input for Wearables by Funding Six External Studies

March 20, 2026 From roadtovr

Meta announced it’s tapped six external teams to receive a research grant in order to advance work on its surface electromyography (sEMG) based wristband controller.

Meta revealed in a blog post it’s launched a research funding initiative focused on improving how users learn and interact with sEMG systems, having chosen six universities out of 70 global submissions.

Each research group is set to receive $150,000 in funding, which includes teams at the University of Central Florida, University of South Florida, University of California, Davis, Newcastle University, University of British Columbia, and Northwestern University.

Meta’s wrist-worn neural interface relies on sEMG, which detects electrical activity in the wrist and hand and translates it into digital commands. As Meta Ray-Ban Display’s main input device, the company hopes to answer a few questions with the studies, namely: how do people learn new sEMG-based controls, and how can onboarding be streamlined?

Wrist-worn XR Controller seen with Orion | Image courtesy Meta

The funded projects explore a range of challenges. Some focus on improving learning methods, such as comparing gamified training with step-by-step instruction, or developing systems that adapt to individual users over time.

Others aim to expand what sEMG can do, like enabling silent speech generation by translating muscle signals into synthesized voice, or increasing the ‘bandwidth’ of communication so users can issue more complex commands without disrupting natural hand movement.

A number of the proposed research topics include assistive applications, such as helping stroke survivors regain muscle control, or improving prosthetic limb operation through co-adaptive systems that learn alongside the user. You can see more about each study here.

This follows the release of Meta Ray-Ban Display last September, the company’s first pair of smart glasses with a built-in display. Priced at $800 and only available in the US for now, the smart glasses make use of the same input scheme first paired with Meta’s Orion AR prototype, which was revealed in late 2024.

This ostensibly shows Meta is pretty confident in the control scheme, viewing it as reliable enough for future (likely AR) devices. We’re looking forward to learning more as the research projects progress. Typically, we see papers either highlighted or released during SIGGRAPH, which is taking place in Los Angeles, California this year on July 19th – 23rd.

XR Glasses Maker VITURE Raises Another $100M, Marking $200M Raised in Less Than 6 Months

February 26, 2026 From roadtovr

XR glasses company VITURE announced it’s secured an additional $100 million financing round following its $100 million Series B secured in September 2025.

The latest round was led by Legend Capital, a Beijing-based investment arm affiliated with Lenovo. The round also featured a group of strategic investors, including previous investor Bertelsmann Group. According to Crunch Base data, this brings Viture’s overall funding to $221.5 million.

Since its Series B in September, Viture has launched its Luma series and Beast XR glasses, phone/PC-tethered XR glasses that use bird bath-style optics. In December, Viture also partnered with CD Projekt RED to release a limited-edition Cyberpunk 2077 Luma series glasses. Since then, the company has expanded retail presence across North America, including in-store demo placements at Best Buy.

VITURE x Cyberpunk 2077 Luma Cyber XR Glasses | Image courtesy VITURE

This follows recent news that Google-backed competitor XREAL filed a patent lawsuit against Viture in January, claiming that patent-infringing devices have been imported or otherwise sold in the US—including the Viture Pro, Luma Pro, and Luma Ultra—which allegedly infringe one or more claims of Xreal’s foundational patents.

In turn, Viture has labeled Xreal’s actions as “patent-troll-style” behavior, even prompting Viture to take its own infringement proceedings against XREAL in China in addition to separate proceedings to “address false and harmful statements made by XREAL about VITURE and its products,” the company says in a press statement.

“While VITURE did not seek to be drawn into litigation, it will not hesitate to enforce its own rights and pursue all appropriate legal remedies available to it,” the company adds.

Notably, Viture says that if the court rules in its favor, the company may consider injunctive relief restricting the manufacturing and export of all Xreal products utilizing the electrochromic film technology, as well as other corrective measures in accordance with applicable law.

Snap Forms ‘Specs Inc’ to Insulate AR Business Ahead of AR Glasses Launch

January 29, 2026 From roadtovr

Snapchat maker Snap announced it’s formed a new business dedicated to its upcoming AR glasses.

The News

Called Specs Inc, the wholly-owned subsidiary within Snap is said to allow for “greater operational focus and alignment” ahead of the public launch of its latest AR glasses coming later this year.

In addition to operating its AR efforts directly under the new brand, Snap says Specs Inc will also allow for “new partnerships and capital flexibility,” including the potential for minority investment.

Snap Spectacles Gen 5 (2024) | Image courtesy Snap Inc

In September, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel noted in an open letter that the company is heading into a make-or-break “crucible moment” in 2026, characterizing Specs as an integral part of the company’s future.

“This moment isn’t just about survival. It’s about proving that a different way of building technology, one that deepens friendships and inspires creativity, can succeed in a world that often rewards the opposite,” Spiegel said.

While the company hasn’t shown of its next-gen Specs yet, the company touts the device’s built-in AI, something that “uses its understanding of you and your world to help get things done on your behalf while protecting and respecting your privacy.”

Snap further notes that it’s “building a computer that we hope you’ll use less, because it does more for you.”

My Take

Snap (or rather, Specs) is set to release its sixth-gen Spectacles this year, although this is the first pair of AR glasses the company is ostensibly hoping to pitch directly to the public, and not just developers and educational institutions.

Info is still thin surrounding Spec Inc’s launch plans for the devices, although forming a new legal entity for its AR business right beforehand could mean a few things.

For now, it doesn’t appear Snap is “spinning out” Spectacles proper; Snap hasn’t announced new leadership, leading me to believe that it’s more of a play to not only attract more targeted investment in the AR efforts, but also insulate the company from potential failure.

Snap Spectacles Gen 5 (2024) | Image courtesy Snap Inc, Niantic

It’s all fairly opaque at this point, although the move does allow investors to more clearly choose between supporting the company’s traditional ad business, or investing it the future of AR.

However you slice it though, AR hardware development is capital intensive, and Snap’s pockets aren’t as deep as its direct competitors, including Meta, Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

While Snap confirmed it spent $3 billion over the course of 11 years creating its AR platform, that’s notably less than what Meta typically spends in a single quarter on its XR Reality Labs division.

It’s also risky. The very real flipside is that Specs Inc could go bankrupt. Maybe it’s too early. Maybe it underdelivers in comparison to competitors. Maybe it’s too expensive out of the gate for consumers, and really only appeals to enterprise. Maybe it isn’t too expensive, but the world heads into its sixth once-in-a-generation economic meltdown.

Simply put, there are a lot of ‘maybes’ right now. And given the new legal separation, Snap still has the option to survive relatively unscathed if it goes belly up, and lives to find another existential pivot.

Magic Leap Signs Deal with Taiwan’s Pegatron, Strengthening AR Manufacturing Position

January 5, 2026 From roadtovr

Magic Leap announced a manufacturing partnership with Pegatron, a major global electronics manufacturer, to scale production of AR glasses components, including Magic Leap’s waveguide technology.

The News

Under the agreement outlined in a press statement, Pegatron will apply its manufacturing capabilities to help turn Magic Leap’s optical designs into mass-produced components.

Taiwan-based Pegatron specializes in developing and producing computing, communications, and consumer electronics for major brands, in addition to being the parent company of PC component company ASRock.

Details are still under wraps, however Magic Leap Product and Partner Development exec Jade Meskill says the partnership will create “a clear path to bring AR components to market at scale.”

“This collaboration reflects the growing maturity of the AR ecosystem,” said Jason Cheng, Vice Chairman at Pegatron. “By combining Magic Leap’s component-level expertise with Pegatron’s manufacturing infrastructure, we can support more efficient pathways from development to production.”

This follows the announcement in October that Magic Leap was entering into a multi-year AR hardware partnership with Google.

My Take

Despite early market missteps that saw millions (if not billions) go to the development of its ML 1 and ML 2 headsets, Magic Leap seems to be making good on its pivot from AR headset creator to major AR component player, as the company is leveraging its designs, know-how and catalogue of patents to stay in the fight.

And despite the years of grinding, it’s a fight that still hasn’t really heated up just yet, as companies like Meta, Apple and Google are still in deep in preparation to create their own AR glasses (note: not smart glasses) for release sometime before 2030.

Still, if the coming AR revolution is anything like the smartphone revolution of the early 2000s, there will potentially be a lot of players beyond those three tech giants to spin up competition when AR components eventually get cheaper with economies of scale.

And while we’re not there yet, Magic Leap seems to have found a solid raison d’être in the meantime, and a much better shot at one day becoming profitable as a result.

Former Oculus Execs’ AI Smart Glasses Startup ‘Sesame’ Raises $250M Series B Funding

October 24, 2025 From roadtovr

Sesame, an AI and smart glasses startup founded by former Oculus execs, raised $250 million in Series B funding, which the company hopes will accelerate its voice-based AI.

The News

As first reported by Tech Crunch, lead investors in Sesame’s Series B include Spark Capital and Sequoia Capital, bringing the company’s overall funding to $307.6 million, according to Crunchbase data.

Exiting stealth earlier this year, Sesame was founded by Oculus co-founder and former CEO Brendan Iribe, former Oculus hardware architect Ryan Brown, and Ankit Kumar, former CTO of AR startup Ubiquity6. Additionally, Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell announced in June he was joining Sesame as Chief Product Officer, which he noted was to “help bring computers to life.”

Sesame is currently working on an AI assistant along with a pair of lightweight smart glasses. Its AI assistant aims to be “the perfect AI conversational partner,” Sequoia Capital says in a recent post.

“Sesame’s vision is to build an ambient interface that is always available and has contextual awareness of the world around you,” Sequoia says. “To achieve that, Sesame is creating their own lightweight, fashion-forward AI-enabled glasses designed to be worn all day. They’re intentionally crafted—fit for everyday life.”

Sesame is currently taking signups for beta access to its AI assistants Miles and Maya in an iOS app, and also has a public preview showcasing a ‘call’ function that allows you to speak with the chatbots.

My Take

Love it or hate it, AI is going to be baked into everything in the future, as contextually aware systems hope to bridge the gap between user input and the expectation of timely and intelligent output. That’s increasingly important when the hardware doesn’t include a display, requiring the user to interface almost entirely by voice.

Some things to watch out for: if the company does commercialize a pair of smart glasses to champion its AI assistant, it will be competing for some pretty exclusive real estate that companies like Meta, Google, Samsung, and Apple (still unconfirmed) are currently gunning for. That puts Sesame at somewhat of a disadvantage if it hopes to go it alone, but not if it’s hoping for a timely exit into the coming wave of smart glasses by being acquired by any of the above.

There’s also some pretty worrying precedent in the rear view mirror too: e.g. Humane’s AI Pin or AI Friend necklace, both of which were publicly lambasted for essentially releasing hardware that could just as easily have been apps on your smartphone.

Granted, Sesame hasn’t shown off its smart glasses hardware yet, so there’s no telling what the company hopes to bring to the table outside of the having an easy-to-wear pair of off-ear headphones for all-day AI stuff—that, to me, would be the worst case scenario, as Meta refines its own smart glasses in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, Google releases Android XR frames with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, Samsung releases its own Android XR glasses, and Apple does… something. We don’t know yet.

Whatever the case, I’m looking forward to it, if only based on the company’s combined experience in XR, which I’d argue any startup would envy as the race to build the next big computing platform truly takes off.

Virtualware Seals €5M Deal to Support Virtual Vocational Training in Spain

September 15, 2025 From roadtovr

Virtualware, the Spain-based XR and 3D simulation software company, announced it’s secured a €5 million ($5.8 million) deal to broadly roll out its VIROO platform in vocational training facilities supported by Spain’s Ministry of Education.

The six-year contract allows Virtualware to bring its XR enterprise platform VIROO to 66 new ‘Centres of Excellence for Vocational Training’ (VET), the company says in a press statement, which are run by Spain’s Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sport (MEFPD).

The rollout to Spain’s VET Centres will join the more than 25 vocational training centers across the country already equipped with VIROO. In Spain, VET supports initial training of young people as well as the continuing up-skilling and re-skilling of adults across a variety of industries.

“We are opening a new chapter of growth and pedagogical innovation, allowing thousands of students to train with state-of-the-art immersive simulators developed and deployed through VIROO platform, raising their technical skills from day one,” says Virtualware founder and CEO Unai Extremo. “Our goal is to bring immersive technology to every vocational training classroom in Spain, through a sustainable model for content creation and deployment”

Founded in 2004 and then later acquired by Swedish company Simumatik in 2024, the in Bilbao, Spain-based company has recently focused on expanding its capabilities to support a number of key industries, including energy, automotive, transportation, defense, manufacturing, education, and healthcare.

Among Virtualware’s clients are GE Vernova, Petronas, Volvo, Gestamp, Alstom, ADIF, Bosch, Biogen, Kessler Foundation, Invest WindsorEssex, McMaster University, the University of El Salvador, Ohio University, the Spanish Ministry of Defense and the Basque Government.

Check out VIROO in action below, which was created to showcase the company’s work with the Spanish nation rail service, ADIF (Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias).

Mojo Vision Secures $75M Investment to Commercialize Micro-LED Displays for XR Glasses

September 9, 2025 From roadtovr

Mojo Vision announced it’s secured a $75 million Series B Prime investment round, which the company says will support the commercialization of its powerful and flexible micro-LED platform for XR glasses.

The round was led by Vanedge Capital, and included investments from current shareholders Edge Venture Capital, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Fusion Fund, Knollwood Capital, Dolby Family Ventures, and Khosla Ventures, and new shareholders, including imec.xpand, Keymaker, Ohio Innovation Fund, and Hyperlink Ventures.

This brings the company’s overall funding to $345 million, according to Crunch Base data; Mojo Vision’s penultimate round came in late 2023, amounting to $43.5 million.

While previously geared towards producing smart contact lenses, Mojo Vision is now all about the underlying micro-LED technology that initially generated headlines back in 2022.

At the time, it was expected Mojo Vision would commercialize a contact lens with embedded micro-LED display, however in April 2023 the company announced it was pivoting.

Founded in 2015, Mojo Vision is now building a type of micro-LED technology that allows the mass-production of them onto silicon chips, combining advanced components like gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon emitters, quantum dots, and micro-lens arrays. According to Mojo Vision, this makes the displays very bright, very small, and energy-efficient.

“Through our micro-LED technology development, Mojo has made significant advancements in establishing breakthrough performance standards while laying the foundation for micro-LEDs as a platform for AI innovation in large market segments,” said Nikhil Balram, CEO of Mojo Vision. “This oversubscribed funding round and strong industry support mark a new phase in the design and production of our next-generation micro-LED platform. The company is on an accelerated path to commercialize micro-LED applications that can power AI.”

The company says it’s targeting the micro-LED platform to build displays for XR glasses, but also large format displays and optical interconnects for AI infrastructure.

Varjo Secures $5.8M Investment to Accelerate Military-Grade XR Hardware

August 22, 2025 From roadtovr

Varjo, the Finland-based maker of high-end XR headsets, announced it’s secured a €5 million (~$5.8 million) minority investment from THEON, the Greece-based manufacturer of military imaging systems.

Structured as a convertible loan, the €5 million investment also includes the option to secure an additional €5 million under the same terms, the companies say in a joint press release. Additionally, as a result of the strategic partnership, Varjo and Theon have agreed to collaborate closely on multiple product and business initiatives.

Founded in 1997, Theon develops and manufactures customizable night vision, thermal imaging systems and Electro-Optical ISR systems for military and security applications in Europe.

Varjo says the investment will strengthen the company’s capabilities to deliver “military-grade realism through next-generation immersive technologies.”

“We are proud to welcome THEON as a strategic investor in Varjo,” said Timo Toikkanen, CEO of Varjo. “Since our inception, we have been creating the most advanced VR/XR military systems globally. THEON’s extensive experience and leadership in the defense sector make them an ideal partner as we expand our impact in mission-critical training and simulation, enabling unprecedented levels of realism, readiness, and operational effectiveness.”

Theon CEO Christian Hadjiminas says the investment “deepens our reach into the European innovation ecosystem and gives THEON access to unique capabilities in visual display systems and projecting technology. Together, we are pushing the frontier of digital defense technology.”

Theon’s investment in Varjo comes as part of its broader ‘THEON NEXT’ initiative, which is taking the company beyond imaging, as Theon seeks to expand into digital and AR-driven soldier systems.

Through Theon Next, the company has also invested $15 million in US/UK-based XR display manufacturer Kopin, signed a multi-year supply agreement with US-based XR display manufacturer eMagin, and announced a strategic partnership with ALEREON, the US-based creator of ultra-wide-band wireless technology.

This follows news last month that Varjo is pulling support for its older XR headsets starting next year, and putting its main focus on its XR-4 Series headsets, effectively marking a return to enterprise-first offerings following the release of its first and only consumer-focused headset, Varjo Aero.

Released in late 2023, the XR-4 Series includes the standard XR‑4 ($5,990), XR‑4 Focal Edition ($9,990), and its military-compliant XR‑4 Secure Edition, which comes in three variants (~$18,00 – $32,000).

Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses Revenue Triples, Fueling Meta’s $3.5 Billion Bet on EssilorLuxottica

July 29, 2025 From roadtovr

EssilorLuxottica released its second quarter earnings report, revealing that Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have tripled in revenue year-over-year.

Released in 2023, Ray-Ban Meta is the companies’ second-gen smart glasses, serving up music, photo/video capture, and Internet searches via Meta AI.

Starting at $300, the smart glasses have done remarkably well for themselves, prompting Meta to not only expand its smart glasses partnership with EssilorLuxottica into 2030, but also reportedly invest $3.5 billion in the French-Italian eyewear conglomerate.

Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, Image courtesy Meta, EssilorLuxottica

Now, EssilorLuxottica says in its recent Q2/H1 2025 earnings that “AI glasses gained further traction in the first half of the year, with Ray-Ban Meta more than tripling in revenue year-over-year.”

Notably, those sales figures don’t appear to include Oakley Meta HTSN, the company’s next generation of smart glasses which launched pre-orders on July 11th, priced at $500 for the debut ‘Limited Edition’ version of the device.

The report doesn’t specify how many units the companies have sold, however in February the company announced it had sold 2 million Ray-Ban smart glasses since release in 2023.

“With a strong first half, including top-line growth and momentum across all regions and businesses, we are keeping pace with our growth targets despite a volatile environment,” said EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri and Deputy CEO Paul du Saillant.

The company reports overall revenue grew by 5.5% to €14 billion (~$16.15 billion) in H1 of 2025, which comes in despite a worsening macroeconomic environment.

EssilorLuxottica cites a few obstacles, including “increased volatility in US customs duties following April 2, 2025 announcement of new reciprocal import tariffs,” and recent devaluation of the US dollar relative to other major world currencies.

CREAL Secures $8.9M Funding to Miniaturize Light Field Display for AR Glasses

July 11, 2025 From roadtovr

Switzerland-based light field display startup CREAL announced its closed a $8.9 million equity funding round, which the company says will accelerate the miniaturization of its light field module for AR glasses.

The equity funding round was led by ZEISS, the Germany-based optical systems and optoelectronics company, with participation from new and existing investors, including members of the UBS private investor network.

This brings the company’s overall funding to $32 million, with previous investors including Swisscom Ventures, Verve Ventures, and DAA Capital Partners.

In a press statement, Creal says funds will accelerate its mission to deliver “natural, comfortable, and healthy visual digital experiences by advancing its proprietary light field display.”

Integrated into AR glasses, light field displays can recreate the way light naturally enters our eyes, enabling more realistic depth perception and reducing eye strain by allowing proper focus cues at different distances. You can learn more about light fields in our explainer below:

Light fields are significant to AR and VR because they’re a genuine representation of how light exists in the real world, and how we perceive it. Unfortunately they’re difficult to capture or generate, and arguably even harder to display.

Every AR and VR headset on the market today uses some tricks to try to make our eyes interpret what we’re seeing as if it’s actually there in front of us. Most headsets are using basic stereoscopy and that’s about it—the 3D effect gives a sense of depth to what’s otherwise a scene projected onto a flat plane at a fixed focal length.

Such headsets support vergence (the movement of both eyes to fuse two images into one image with depth), but not accommodation (the dynamic focus of each individual eye). That means that while your eyes are constantly changing their vergence, the accommodation is stuck in one place. Normally these two eye functions work unconsciously in sync, hence the so-called ‘vergence-accommodation conflict’ when they don’t.

Some headsets include ‘varifocal’ approaches, dynamically shifting the focal length based on where you’re looking (with eye-tracking), such as Magic Leap One as well as older Meta prototype VR headsets—supporting a larger number of focal lengths. Even so, these varifocal approaches still have some inherent issues that arise because they aren’t actually displaying light fields.

“As AI reshapes how we work and create, AR is poised to become the killer interface to this new era,” says Tomas Sluka, CEO and co-founder of Creal. “But if we’re going to wear AR glasses all day, they must imperatively be healthy, comfortable, and natural to use. That’s why we’re focused on delivering AR glasses that uniquely project digital imagery with real-world depth — fully supporting the natural focusing mechanism of the human eye. This is one of the key foundations for immersive spatial computing.”

Creal says the fresh funding round will help the Écublens, Switzerland-based company continue R&D on its AR light field module, which the company aims to integrate into lightweight, fashionable AR glasses—first for enterprise, and later for consumers.

This also includes ongoing support of a licensing agreement with Zeiss, kicked off in late 2024, to bring its light field-based vision care platform to Zeiss, which it will be used in Zeiss’ next-gen diagnostic and treatment devices.