VR Investment

Leading Hand-tracking Company Ultraleap Raises $82 Million Investment

November 18, 2021 From roadtovr

Ultraleap, a leading company focused on hand-tracking interfaces, this week announced it has secured a £60 million (~$82 million) Series D investment, with the goal of expanding its hand-tracking and mid-air haptic tech in the XR space and beyond.

Formerly known as Ultrahaptics, Ultraleap was formed after the UK-based haptics company acquired leading hand-tracking company Leap Motion back in 2019. The new name clearly defined the merger’s unique combination of mid-air ultrasonic haptics now underpinned by some of the best hand-tracking tech in the industry.

This week Ultraleap announced it has raised a £60 million (~$82 million) Series D investment with participation from new investors Tencent, British Patient Capital, and CMB International, alongside existing investors Mayfair Equity Partners and IP Group plc.

“With this investment round, Ultraleap will continue to bring Gemini to different operating systems and increase their investment in tooling to enable developers to build more applications using the best interface—your hands. Ultraleap will also continue to invest in R&D to drive their machine-learning-based hand tracking even further ahead,” the company said in its investment announcement.

Ultraleap is betting that hand-tracking will be the primary input for XR and the metaverse. Last month the company released its latest revision.

While the company has been trying to get its tech into the XR space for many years now, it has yet to find significant traction. Though Ultraleap hand-tracking can be found on a few headsets like those from Varjo and Pimax, leading devices implementing hand-tracking—like Quest 2, HoloLens, and Magic Leap—are using their own solutions, as far as we know.

However, with a growing number of XR devices on the market and the steady march toward consumer-friendly AR glasses, the company seems poised to find the right fit eventually.

Ultraleap is also looking to find a home for its tech outside of the XR realm. The company has long been angling its tech in the automotive space as an in-car interface, as well as the out-of-home space in areas like exhibits, marketing installations, and touchless self-service kiosks.

Social VR Startup Raises $57 Million Investment Led by Major Japanese Mobile Network

November 15, 2021 From roadtovr

Japanese social VR startup HIKKY announced today that it has raised ¥6.5 billion (~$57 million), led by Japanese mobile network operator NTT Docomo. The startup says it will use the funds to expand its web-based metaverse platform.

Founded in 2018, Japan-based Hikky is best known for its series of ‘Vket’ events, virtual marketplaces where exhibitors market and sell real and virtual goods to attendees.

The company says that its virtual events have drawn more than a million visitors and have attracted major brands as exhibitors like HP, Tencent, Disney, Bandai Namco, Audi, and more, algonside independent creators selling virtual goods.

A Disney branded booth at a Vket event | Image courtesy Hikky

Following its latest Vket 6 event this Summer, the company today announced it has raised a ¥6.5 billion (~$57 million) Series A funding round, led by Japanese mobile network operator NTT Docomo (other participants weren’t revealed). Hikky says the amount is the “initial stage” of the Series A funding round, and that it is open to additional funding.

The company says the capital will be used to strengthen its foundation, expand products both domestically and abroad, and continue to develop its web-based metaverse platform, Vket Cloud.

While the company’s Vket events have largely been hosted in social VR platform VRChat, Hikky is betting long term on its own Vket Cloud platform, which it says is designed as an open metaverse platform where users can host virtual spaces on their own domains which are accessible through any web browser, be it in or out of VR.

Sandbox VR Announces $37M Series B Funding to Expand Out-of-home VR Locations

November 10, 2021 From roadtovr

Out-of-home VR destination Sandbox VR today announced an additional $37 million funding round that the company is using to support its continued expansion. In addition to its dozen worldwide locations, Sandbox VR says it’s working to nearly doubling that.

The Series B funding was led by a16z, and includes participation by Alibaba and Craft. According to Crunchbase data, this puts their lifetime outside financing to around $120 million.

Like pretty much everyone in the out-of-home entertainment sector, Sandbox VR went through its own share of financial challenges over the past year due to COVID-19 closures. It both filed for, and reemerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy following debt restructure.

“We are excited to use the latest round of funding for content development, cutting edge technology and accelerated growth,” says Steve Zhao, CEO and founder of Sandbox VR. “With more stores on the way, we’ll be ramping up our internal studios as well as developing our SDK to open up publishing in the near future.”

And it appears Sandbox VR is making a quick comeback. The company opened three locations in July—Austin, Las Vegas, and Shanghai—and is aiming to open ten more as it enters 2022. Currently, the company operates 12 locations across North America and Asia. Paramus (New Jersey), Toronto (Canada) and London (UK) locations are marked as “coming soon.”

The fresh funding round suggests that VR arcades may be seeing a renewal in investor confidence, although Sandbox VR is probably one of the best-positioned in the sector due to its relatively small physical footprint requirements, in-house content studio, and licensed IP such as its Star Trek: Discovery multiplayer missions.

Sandbox VR has survived The VOID, one of its biggest competitors (certainly the most flashy), which permanently closed all locations worldwide last year. Coincidentally, The VOID’s flagship space at the Grand Canal Shoppes in Las Vegas is now a Sandbox VR location.