In one of the largest venture capital deals on record, Magic Leap announced the close of its $542 million Series B funding, a round led by Google and including KPCB, Andreessen Horowitz, Obvious Ventures, Qualcomm, film-finance company Legendary Entertainment and Paul Allen’s investment firm Vulcan, the Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch and others reported today. The deal values the company at nearly $2 billion and the funding will be used for product development.
Magic Leap, based in Dania Beach with more than 100 employees and led by co-founder and CEO Rony Abovitz, has been quite stealth, but the Wall Street Journal said the startup is developing its own eyeglasses-like device, different from Google Glass, designed to project computer-generated images over a real-life setting. In an earlier interview with me, he called the technology "Cinematic Reality," much different from virtual reality or even augmented reality, he has said.
Sundar Pichai, the head of Google’s Android, Chrome and Apps businesses, will join Magic Leap’s board in a rare move, while Don Harrison, the company’s head of corporate development, will become a board observer, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Abovitz said he sees Magic Leap as a new interface that could replace the PC monitors and smartphone screens that define the modern era of computing.
Read the Wall Street Journal article here.
We particularly like FastCompany's description of Magic Leap as "a company that, at best, you heard of a week ago, based on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale, Florida (!)" It is true that the funding round alone is quite a bit more than the amount in VC funding -- $418 million -- all companies in Florida received last year.
But Starting Gate readers know that Abovitz has done this all before as co-founder and chief visionary officer of Mako Surgical, Which raised more than $300 million in equity financing and sold for $1.65 billion to Stryker last year. He founded Magic Leap in 2011 and has been quietly assembling a huge team, including from the film and comic book realm. In August, for instance, Magic Leap announced that "Guardians of the Galaxy" comic writer Andy Lanning joined Magic Leap as “Comic World Ambassador” and Dave Gibbons, co-creator of the “Watchmen,” joined as Creative Advisor.
Magic Leap raised $50 million earlier this year.
In his own words? Abovitz's blog post is here.
An animation on Magicleap.com shows a hint of Magic Leap's technology.
Posted Oct. 21, 2014