Magic Leap

Magic Leap keeps a secret any parts about the development — only the fact that future product will combine technologies of the virtual and complemented realities is still known. In January, 2015 developers submitted the patent application of the invention — "The planar device managed by gestures with diffraction elements".^[1]

Illustration to the patent request Magic Leap

Demonstration of opportunities of Magic Leap technology, April, 2016

History

2020

Peggy Johnson is the CEO of Magic Leap

At the beginning of July, 2020 it became known of Peggy Johnson's appointment to a post of the CEO of Magic Leap. The former top manager of Microsoft and Qualcomm will officially head the developer of AR headsets in August. Read more here.

Dismissal of a half of personnel and termination of retail sales

On April 22, 2020 it became known of large-scale reorganization in Magic Leap. The company dismissed 1000 employees, i.e. every second and also decided to stop retail sales of the products.

In Magic Leap at first announced Bloomberg news agency with reference to own sources mass layoffs. Later the CEO Roni Abovits confirmed liquidation of working positions, but did not begin to give any digits.

The developer of Magic Leap AR headsets dismissed a half of employees and stops retail sales

Better to prepare Magic Leap for the future, we attentively studied our business and decided to make purposeful changes to how we work and we manage expenses. It forced us to make incredibly difficult decision on dismissal of a number of employees in Magic Leap — Abovits in the blog of the company wrote.

From 2010 to April of the 2020th Magic Leap attracted in total more than $2.6 billion investments. After the beginning of a pandemic of a coronavirus of COVID-19 of the company advanced the points for $2300 as the ideal tool for remote work.

According to Bloomberg, the Board of Directors of Magic Leap also considers the possibility of attraction of new external investments, and options of partnership with the large medical company, report edition sources.  Abovits told that the company is "in process of negotiating on potentially profitable strategic partnership which see the value of a technology platform of Magic Leap in business market".

Also the startup decided to refuse retail sales and to concentrate on a corporate segment where the company should compete with Microsoft and its product HoloLens.

Magic Leap  signed with Chinese telecommunication NTT DoCoMo operators the delivery contract of headsets of augmented reality. It is expected that NTT will advance the partner's devices among the local companies.^[2]

The AR startup of Magic Leap which deceived waiting wants to sell business for $10 billion

The startup in the field of augmented reality of Magic Leap looks for buyers,^[3] reports]. According to the report of the company, several options of sale, including partnership and public listing are considered. Magic Leap expects to receive $10 billion. However negotiations with Facebook and Johnson & Johnson did not lead to anything,^[4] notes]^[5].

According to Techcrunch, the pandemic of a coronavirus does not promote Magic Leap sale: "Augmented reality seems less interesting, than virtual when people avoid public places. Force people to tie the used equipment of AR to the person it seems a difficult task in the near future".

2019: Purchase of the developer of service for Mimesys video conferences

In the middle of May, 2019 the Magic Leap company announced acquisition of service for video conferences in augmented reality of Mimesys. Read more here.

2018

Opening of the platform for developers

In March, 2018 Magic Leap released the first tool kit by means of which third-party developers will be able to create the software for the equipment of the company. However, by the time of this release of SDK still any product Magic Leap did not reach the commercial market.

Magic Leap started the special portal (Creator Portal) on which everyone will be able to download tools for development of software of Lumin SDK and also to get access to detailed instructions for developers and technical support services of the company.

Magic Leap opened the portal for developers and made available SDK

Magic Leap told the name of the operating system which will be used augmented reality wearing spectacles — Lumin OS. It is constructed on a kernel of Linux and created by the principles of Open Source.

App store for Magic Leap devices received the name Magic Leap World. With its help it is possible "to create and manage the development team, and then to provide it access to all tools necessary for successful exchange of creations with the world", it is told on the website of the company.

To look what users of Magic Leap headsets will see applications, for developers provided the Magic Leap Simulator program.

Magic Leap told about plans to create the portal for developers in 2015: then the company reported only that persons interested to participate in developments (they were offered to leave the contact information)  will be able  to work with game Unity and Unreal engines. In 2016 the startup allowed to participate in development only to a limited number of users and only in March of the 2018th the platform was opened for everyone.^[6]

As a result developers had an opportunity to download preassemblies of Unreal Engine 4 or Unity for studying of calculations in three-dimensional space which are provided by the Magic Leap platform.

Business valuation in $6 billion

In March, 2018 Magic Leap attracted the next portion of large investments in spite of the fact that the company by this moment did not put on the market any product.

According to Reuters news agency with reference to the statement Magic Leap, the company carried out the second investment round according to the results of which it was succeeded to collect $461 million. The first round took place in October, 2017, then invested $502 million in Magic Leap, and the most part of means was provided by the Singapore public investment fund Temasek Holdings Thus, the total amount of the money received by a startup for two rounds reached $963 million, and during all the time the amount exceeded $2.3 billion.

Magic Leap AR startup without uniform product attracted $2.3 billion investments and is estimated at $6 billion

The sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia took part in the March transaction on financing of Magic Leap (  Public Investment Fund, PIF). It joined such investors of Magic Leap as Google, Alibaba Group, Qualcomm, Warner Bros and JP Morgan. The market value of Magic Leap by March of the 2018th is estimated more than at $6 billion.

Magic Leap is considered an AR startup with the best financial support. The closest competitor on investments — Niantic — received $233 million means from investors that it is significantly less, than Magic Leap.

Magic Leap does not open where spends money of investors. It is known only that the company develops the whole AR ecosystem which not only devices, but also the software, and content for this equipment enter. According to Business Insider, monthly expenses of Magic Leap exceed $50 million.

Surprisingly, but Magic Leap attracts hundreds of millions dollars investments without sales at least of one product. The first of them — points augmented reality Magic Leap One Creator Edition — should enter the market in 2018. According to unofficial data, the cost of this headset will reach $1500.

As notes Bloomberg, the high interest of investors in Magic Leap is caused by the ambitious concept and privacy of the project, however the company even more often should answer skeptical opinion on capability to finish development. Besides, there are also many internal problems.

In February, 2018 Magic Leap filed a lawsuit on the former employee Todd of Todd Keil which under the threat of legal claims tried to extort money. The late edition Business Insider wrote that Magic Leap contacted police because of theft by the worker of $1 million at the company.^[7]

2017: Attraction of $2 billion investments

On October 18, 2017 it became known that Magic Leap company, one of the most untwisted, but still quite mysterious players of emerging market of augmented reality (AR), attracted more than half a billion dollars during an investment round. According to the results of this transaction the startup gained in total nearly $2 billion investments.^[8]

The AR startup without uniform product attracted $2 billion investments

Repeatedly such investors as Google, Alibaba, J. P. Morgan, Fidelity Management and Research and also T. Rowe Price invested in Magic Leap. For the first time Grupo Globo, Temasek, EDBI and Janus Henderson Investors took part in financing of Magic Leap.

We are glad to welcome Temasek and other new investors who took part in this investment round of Magic Leap company. We are also very grateful to our shareholders for that resolute support and partnership which proceed from them — the CEO of Magic Leap Rony Abovitz said.

Augmented reality represents imposing of virtual images on a situation of the real world. Unlike completely created artificially virtual reality, this technology was not widely adopted among ordinary users yet though Microsoft made quite great success with the Hololens glasses (the company calls this technology "the mixed reality").

By October, 2017 the general size of the attracted Magic Leap of investments was $1.9 billion, and investors estimate the company approximately at $6 billion. Despite big financing the company did not disclose detailed information on the products. It is known only that the startup creates headsets for augmented reality the size slightly more normal points, but it is less than headsets for virtual reality. Magic Leap said that its devices will not cause tension of eyes with which use of head headsets often is associated with displays.

You look also Virtual reality

Notes