The Mysterious Company That Has Tech Giants Dropping $542 Million
Why Google, others are choosing to invest.
— -- Google and other tech giants are taking are taking a half-billion dollar leap on a mysterious start-up that could change the way people interact with computers.
Magic Leap, a Hollywood, Florida, based start-up announced today it received a $542 million round of funding led by Google, along with Qualcomm Ventures, venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz and a slew of other top technology investors.
"Magic Leap is going beyond the current perception of mobile computing, augmented reality, and virtual reality. We are transcending all three, and will revolutionize the way people communicate, purchase, learn, share and play," Rony Abovitz, the company's CEO and founder, said in a statement.
Little is known about what Magic Leap. However, the company's website yields a few clues about how they hope to create a natural interactive computing experience that could give others in the space, such as Facebook's Oculus Rift, some competition.
"Imagine being able to generate images indistinguishable from real objects and then being able to place those images seamlessly into the real world," the company teases.
When Magic Leap closed a $50 million round of funding in February, Abovitz said the funding would go toward developing and commercializing Cinematic Reality, the company's computing interface technology.
"What is remarkable is how well the human body and mind respond when technology respects biology, so truly magical experiences become possible," Abovitz said. "In this new world of the intimate relationship between computing and human sensory systems, Magic Leap is bending its proprietary technology to meet the very human needs of our future users and co-creators."
Google declined to comment on how it hopes to use Magic Leap's technology in the future, however the company is devoting some of its top talent to Magic Leap.
Sundar Pichai, the senior vice president of Android, Chrome and Apps at Google will join Magic Leap's board of directors, while Don Harrison, vice president of corporate development, will will join as an observer, alongside Paul Jacobs, the executive chairman of Qualcomm.
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