US-based Jaunt, an early-stage startup creating an immersive 360-degrees virtual reality system, has raised $6.8m in venture funding from investors including media company British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), which invested $350,000 in Jaunt in December 2013.
Redpoint Ventures, Peter Gotcher, Blake Krikorian and SV Angel joined BskyB in the round. Gotcher, Tim Haley, partner at Redpoint Ventures, and Stuart Murphy, director of entertainment channels at BSkyB, will join Jaunt’s board.
Jens Christensen, CEO of Jaunt, said: “VR as it exists today is mainly about video games. We want to broaden the VR experience to mainstream entertainment.”
Tim Haley added: “The virtual reality market is just beginning to pick up speed but you can already see how seriously people are taking it and the potential it really has.”
With Jaunt’s investment coming in the wake of Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR, a developer of virtual reality equipment for video games, for $2bn and Sony announcing its own virtual reality headset, Project Morpheus, it appears that Jaunt’s series A round has come at the right time.