Techcrunch reports that AT&T makes a strategic investment into Magic Leap, a developer of AR glasses. Magic Leap last round D valued the startup at $6.3b, and the companies have confirmed that this AT&T completes the Series D round of $963m.
So far, Magic Leap has raised $2.35b from a number of strategic backers including Google, Alibaba and Axel Springer.
What? What demos are they showing to the execs? Everything that I've seen so far is a trainwreck of a failure from the device to the apps.
ReplyDeleteIt says "strategic investment". Probably for their own purposes, such as tax etc.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to believe that companies are still investing in this.
ReplyDeleteThe best explanation I have is that they get to see something we all do not, because what they have shown so far is pretty underwhelming (including this latest 'demo'). Poor graphics, poor tracking, poor product design. I don't even understand how the business model is different from Hololens, from which this device inherits all the issues of small FOV, inability to block light, limits in mobile compute power and energy.
The main differentiation I have heard so far is the ability to display lightfields, which I doubt the device has the required compute and battery power to do properly.
This must be the most overvalued 'startup' ever.
They are showing them the future of human computer interface. Is it reasonable to expect the challenges can be solved? For these investors it seems there is a level of confidence relative to their investment and the perceived rewards. Are there any other related technological advancements expected that make this technology likely to be viable?
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