US-based augmented reality headset developer Magic Leap increased a series D round featuring corporate investors Grupo Globo, Alibaba and Google to $963m yesterday.
The company added $461m to the round, $400m of which came from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The rest was provided by new backers, including media group Axel Springer’s corporate venturing unit, Axel Springer Digital Ventures, which invested last month.
Magic Leap is developing an AR headset together with a dedicated operating system, and is in talks with prospective content producers. The series D round, which values it at about $6bn, took Magic Leap’s overall funding to $2.35bn.
The company expects to commercially release the headset with a price of between $1,500 and $2,000 by the end of 2018, but Business Insider has reported that it is currently spending in excess of $50m a month.
E-commerce firm Alibaba, internet technology provider Google and media company Grupo Globo contributed to the round’s $502m first tranche, which was led by Singaporean government-owned investment firm Temasek, in October 2017.
The participants in the 2017 tranche included another Singaporean state-owned agency, EDBI, financial services group Fidelity Management and Research (FMR), JP Morgan Investment Management, Janus Henderson Investors and T Rowe Price.
Alibaba had led Magic Leap’s $794m series C round, which included Google, entertainment studio Legendary Entertainment, media group Warner Bros and Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of mobile chipmaker Qualcomm, in early 2016.
The series C round also featured FMR, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Andreessen Horowitz, Obvious Ventures, KKR, Wellington Management and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price.
Magic Leap had raised $50m from undisclosed investors before closing a $542m series B round led by Google in 2014 that was backed by Qualcomm Ventures, Legendary Entertainment, KPCB, Andreessen Horowitz, KKR, Vulcan Capital and Obvious Ventures.
– Image courtesy of Magic Leap, Inc.