WaveOptics, a UK-based technology start-up has raised £20 Million in a newly introduced funding round. The funds have been raised for the creation of special components to augment reality glasses, or AR glasses and develop its market worldwide.
The start-up laid its foundation stone in the year 2014. Since then the company has worked and developed methods to print nanoparticles onto the glasses directly. Thus, the glasses so produced have modified features, with high-end technology embedded in it and available at a cost which is very pocket-friendly. They have used this technique to produce the nano-coated Augmented Reality glasses on a large-scale. Due to the technique involved in the development of the lenses, high-resolution images generated by the computer can now be overlaid on the real world images. The constituents and pieces of AR are currently sold by pioneer companies like Microsoft and MagicLeap.
Octopus Ventures is a London and New York-based venture capital firm helps the innovative entrepreneurs to stand-up to the global market levels. This firm led the funding rounds for this Abingdon-based start-up and has proclaimed the largest share of WaveOptics.
The funds will help in the expansion of the company further to Asia, USA, and other parts of Europe, revealed the company’s Chief Executive, David Hayes. The funds are sufficient enough to reach a global market and go for a very large-scale synthesis of the products, said Hayes. The company aims at producing a million units of the specialized components every year and this would guide the customers to build their own product assets.
The cheap and absolutely affordable lens design with the amazing features is the next science that will definitely allure a lot of customers, believes Hayes. Currently, the cost of the lenses start from £780, equivalent to $1000, but the price is estimated to fall to £469 or $600 by the end of 2019. The start-up company is presently trying to strengthen its foundations in different countries across the world, but it has also planned to invest in some other companies for revenue-generation for its own self.
It has recently invested in overseas projects and reportedly launched its office in Los Angeles and Taipei too. The next target is to hit Beijing. It has also sealed a deal with Goertek which is a Chinese company of consumer electrical goods. Amongst the shareholders other than Octopus Ventures, there is IP Group, Optimas Capital Partners, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, and Gobi Partners.
The net worth of the company is expected to reach £70 Billion by 2023, as declared by Mordor Intelligence and the growth rate increment by 51 percent over the next five years.
