“Mixed reality” startup Magic Leap has officially closed a massive $502m round of funding led by Singapore’s state-owned fund Temasek, putting their post-funding valuation at about $5B.
Which is funny… because they still don’t have a working prototype.
Kinda makes you wonder what they did with the other $1.4B
The Florida-based company raised $794m about a year and a half ago, putting their total backing at $1.4B — prior to this round.
But all the investor optimism in the world can’t make up for the fact that they have yet to share even an estimated launch date with the public.
Meanwhile, incriminating exposés suggest that Magic Leap’s demo videos, which depict things like a whale breaching in a gymnasium, wildly exaggerated their technical capabilities (the prototype required a fancy projector the size of a refrigerator).
And even if they do manage to work out the kinks…
There’s no guarantee anyone will actually want it
Augmented reality is an untested market: so far consumers have been hesitant to shell out big bucks for Oculus’ virtual reality headset, and there’s no guarantee that Magic Leap would fair much better.
Either way, they’ve been climbing the ladder to the high dive for about 6 years now — and whether they swan dive, or do a big ol’ belly flop, it’s gonna be a whale of a business tale.