Augmented Reality Startup Magic Leap Raises 502M from Temasek Co – BW Disrupt

The startup possibly valued at $6 billion, Magic Leap Inc. has raised $502 million in series D equity funding, led by Singapore’s national wealth fund Temasek with participation from strategic and financial investors.

New investors in Magic Leap include Temasek, EDBI – a Singapore-based global fund, Grupo Globo from Brazil, and Janus Henderson Investors.

Existing investors participating in this financing include Alibaba Group, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Google LLC, J.P. Morgan Investment Management, and T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.

“We’re excited to welcome Temasek and the other new investors in this round to the Magic Leap family. We also greatly appreciate the strong support and partnership from our existing shareholders,” said Rony Abovitz, founder, president and CEO of Magic Leap. Allen & Company LLC served as exclusive financial advisor to Magic Leap in connection with the transaction.

Magic Leap has said in a statement that their mission is to harmonize people and technology, amplifying the best parts of you, to create a better, more unified world. Headquartered in Florida, Magic Leap also has locations in Los Angeles, Sunnyvale, Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Zurich, New Zealand, and Israel.

According to its Wikipedia page, the American startup is working on a head-mounted virtual retinal display which superimposes 3D computer-generated imagery over real world objects, by projecting a digital light field into the user’s eye, using technologies potentially suited to applications in augmented reality and computer vision. It is attempting to construct a light-field chip using silicon photonics.

Magic Leap was founded by Rony Abovitz in 2010 and so far has raised $1.4 billion from a list of investors including Google and Alibaba Group. As of October 2017, the company is yet to release a product to the market.

A video recently released by the company offers little more than references to magic. However snippets of information revealed or leaked about what the company is up to suggests they’re making their own AR headset.

Bloomberg, which was reported the possibility of a series D investment back in September, also added that Magic Leap may also launch a limited number of its first device which would be priced between $1,500 and $2,000.

Recently Magic Leap’s chief game designer offering insight into the types of AR experiences the company has been building internally, said that he believes their format of AR content may “define a generation.”