AR Business, Investments, & Executive Moves


News: Magic Leap Lawsuit vs. Nreal Takes Major Step Forward After Legal Team Scours the Planet in Search of Elusive Founder
The legal drama surrounding Chinese startup Nreal and Magic Leap continues, and now we finally have an update.

News: Apple Acquires Motion Capture Firm iKinema, Adding Another Piece to Its Augmented Reality Toolbox
Apple remains shrouded in mystery while continuing to sweep up small companies ahead of a rumored augmented reality headset launch.

News: Judge Issues Permanent Injunction Against Meta Company & Founder in Patent Lawsuit, Prevents Sales of Meta 2 AR Headset
It was a long time coming, but we finally have a meaningful conclusion to the legal case against augmented reality startup Meta Company.

News: Startup Light Field Lab Lands $28 Million in Funding from Samsung, Verizon, & Comcast for Holographic Displays
The venture arms of Samsung and Verizon Ventures, along with Comcast, are among the strategic investors backing startup Light Field Lab and its glasses-free holographic displays in a $28 million Series A funding round

News: India Telecom Giant Reliance Jio Partners with Startup Tesseract to Bring Augmented Reality Headsets to the Home
We already know that major players like Magic Leap have been planting the seeds of augmented reality for mainstream consumers through wireless partnerships with AT&T, NTT Docomo, SK Telecom.

News: Qualcomm & Bose Back RealWear's Enterprise Augmented Reality Wearables in $80 Million Funding Round
Some investors play the short game, placing their bets on industries that show the quickest return on their investment, and, in the augmented reality space, that means the enterprise sector.

News: Apple Design Chief Jony Ive's Exit Offers Another Clue About Company's Rumored Augmented Reality Smartglasses
A new profile on Apple's exiting design chief Jony Ive, the man behind many of the company's most successful products, paints a fuller picture of what led to his departure.

News: Magic Leap Claims He Stole Augmented Reality Ideas as an Employee, but Who Is Chi Xu, the Founder of Nreal?
When I first found out about Nreal, back in the spring of 2018, the most interesting thing about the company's story was the founder's background. Chi Xu, the CEO and founder of Nreal, previously worked at Magic Leap as a software engineer.

News: Nreal Strikes 5G Partnership with LG Uplus in South Korea, Begins Accepting Pre-Orders for Nreal Light Developer Kit
After entering into settlement talks with Epic Games over the gaming giant's trademark challenge, Nreal is now ready to open up the floodgates to potential early adopters in the augmented reality space.

News: Epic Games Enters Settlement Talks with Nreal Over Trademark Naming Dispute
At least one hurdle to China-based augmented reality startup Nreal going mainstream in the United States may be about to be knocked down, thanks to behind the scenes legal movements Next Reality has uncovered.

News: Magic Leap Loses CFO Scott Henry & Effects Wizard John Gaeta Following News of Funding Woes
This week's news that Magic Leap's patents had entered collateral limbo, now in the hands of JPMorgan Chase, threw a dark cloud over the company.

News: Magic Leap Patents Signed Over to JPMorgan Chase as Collateral Just Months After Major Funding Push
Is the augmented reality magic fading down in Plantation, Florida? That's the first question some may be asking following a casual revelation over the weekend that Magic Leap, the maker of the Magic Leap One, has assigned much of its patent portfolio over to JP Morgan Chase as collateral.

News: Vuforia Parent PTC Goes All-In on 3D Content Creation with $470 Million Acquisition of Onshape CAD Platform
There's a direct correlation between the proliferation of augmented reality apps and the demand for 3D content, and PTC just quantified that in dollars.

News: Magic Leap Takes Nreal to Court Over Trade Secrets Theft
In a legal brief entered on Monday, Florida-based startup Magic Leap has filed suit against the founder of Nreal, a former employee of Magic Leap, claiming that the company's Nreal Light smartglasses were built using Magic Leap's intellectual property.

News: UK-Based Ultrahaptics Acquires Leap Motion for $30 Million
The long and somewhat tumultuous journey of Leap Motion has come to an end, thanks to another startup.

News: Meta Rises from the Ashes Under New Ownership, Along with a New CEO
Almost half a year after we broke the story about the demise of Meta Company, there's good news for fans of the augmented reality startup — a rebirth is at hand.

News: Smartglasses Startup North Secures $40 Million in New Funding, Report Says
Despite the recent gut punch of staff layoffs, Canada-based smartglasses startup North and its Focals are likely to be in the game for a while longer.

News: Magic Leap Acquires Augmented Reality Telepresence Startup Mimesys
Just months after we previewed the augmented reality, volumetric video conferencing powers of Mimesys, the company has undergone a major change — it's now a part of Magic Leap.

News: Samsung Joins Niantic in Backing DigiLens with $50 Million Funding Round
Smartglasses are the future of augmented reality, and Samsung is betting on waveguide maker DigiLens to emerge as a leader in the growing AR wearable industry.

News: Magic Leap Deepens Funding from Telecom Industry with $280 Million from Japan's NTT Docomo
Magic Leap's business strategy for bringing augmented reality to the mainstream has become even clearer via its latest funding round.