November 17, 2021 – Ultraleap, a provider of extended reality (XR) technologies such as hand tracking and mid-air haptics, has today announced that it has completed a GBP £60 million (USD $82 million) Series D round of investment. Ultraleap stated that the funding will enable the company to further develop and commercialize its technologies for existing and next generation computing platforms.
New investors including Tencent, British Patient Capital through its Future Fund: Breakthrough programme and CMB International, were joined by existing shareholders Mayfair Equity Partners and IP Group plc, who also invested in the round.
Commenting on the funding announcement, Tom Carter, Ultraleap CEO, said: “The metaverse concept is not new to Ultraleap. It has always been our mission to remove boundaries between physical and digital worlds. The pandemic has accelerated the rise of the term as more people now understand the power of enhancing the physical world with digital elements.
“For Ultraleap, this new era is not constrained to VR headsets. Like the internet, it is a reality we will interact with in all parts of life: at home, in the office, in cars, or out in public. Our aim with this Series D raise is to accelerate the transition to the primary interface – your hands – because there are no physical controllers, buttons or touchscreens in anyone’s vision of the metaverse.”
According to Ultraleap, the recent announcement of its fifth-generation hand tracking platform, known as Gemini, means that the company’s hand tracking software is now available across multiple platforms, camera systems and third-party hardware. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 chipset and Varjo’s VR-3 and XR-3 headsets have already shipped with Gemini built in.
With this latest investment round, Ultraleap stated that it will continue to bring Gemini to different operating systems and increase its investment in tooling to enable developers to build more applications that use hands as the interface. Ultraleap will also continue to invest in R&D to further develop its machine-learning-based hand tracking. Furthermore, the company added that the Series D round will also enable Ultraleap to iterate faster on its automotive haptic platform and invest in R&D to drive forward its commercially available mid-air haptics solution.
Carter added: “This raise doesn’t just give us greater resources to scale, but our investors provide us insights and access to our target markets as well. The timing aligns with the demand we are seeing from our customers across key verticals.”
For more information on Ultraleap and its hand tracking and haptics technology solutions, please visit the company’s website.
Image / video credit: Ultraleap / YouTube
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.