Market Reality: Fastdata.io, Ultrahaptics Secure Funding for Contributions to AR

This week in Market Reality, we see two companies capitalizing on technologies that contribute to augmented reality platforms. In addition, industry mainstays Vuzix and DAQRI have business news of their own to report.

Fastdata.io Raises $1.5 Million

A group of investors headlined by NVIDIA have committed $1.5 million in funding to fastdata.io for development of their real-time stream processing engine.

Fastdata.io claims its FDIO Engine can boost stream processing speeds by three orders of magnitude compared to other engines while reducing power requirements by 90 percent. These efficiencies promise to have considerable impacts on the development of applications that rely on real-time processing, such as augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, finance, security and more.

Jason Silva, host of National Geographic's Origins, makes the case for fastdata.io's approach in the video below.

"Our FDIO Engine is unique in the industry, built from the ground up for both speed and efficiency. It can process large amounts of streaming data while natively accelerating any existing algorithms out of the box. This was made possible by low-level programming and harnessing the sheer power of NVIDIA's efficient GPU technology," said Alen Capalik, CEO and founder of fastdata.io.

Fastdata.io will display their technology at the GPU Technology Conference, taking place in San Jose, California on May 8-11.

Ultrahaptics Secures Series B Investment

Ultrahaptics, a British mid-air haptics technology company, revealed this week that they have completed a series B round of investment totaling $23 million to fund its entry into augmented and virtual reality markets.

Ultrahaptic's technology uses ultrasound to project vibration through the air to the user's hands, allowing users to sense virtual buttons and objects in touchless interfaces for AR and VR platforms as well as automotive, industrial and medical controls.

New investors, including Cornes and Dolby Family Ventures, joined existing shareholders, such as IP Group plc and Woodford Investment Management, in the investment round.

"We have invested in Ultrahaptics for its potential to enable completely new experiences and user interfaces. We are very impressed by the team, its strong IP portfolio, and by the many applications for this technology," said David Dolby, of Dolby Family Ventures, in a news release.

Vuzix Announcing First Quarter 2017 Financial Results Next Week

Industrial smart glasses maker Vuzix Corporation announced this week that they will review their financial results for first quarter 2017 on May 10 at 4:30 pm Eastern Time.

Paul Travers, chief executive officer and president, and Grant Russell, chief financial officer, will present operational and financial accomplishments for the quarter.

Dial-in information for the conference call is available here.

DAQRI Hires HoloLens Sales Exec

Augmented reality software and hardware developer announced this week the appointment of Chris Kaufield as their executive vice president of worldwide sales.

With more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry, Kaufield previously led sales teams for Surface Hub, HoloLens and other products for Microsoft as worldwide sales directory.

"Augmented Reality is having a huge impact around the world and the pace of growth is increasing every single day," said Brian Mullins, DAQRI founder and CEO,

in a news release. "DAQRI's leadership of the industry requires us to continuously innovate with a sharp focus on capturing the most important segments of the market. Chris is a world-class sales leader with a track record of creating sales strategies and building successful teams for new, category defining products and technology. His background is perfectly aligned with our goal to bring AR Everywhere."

This isn't the first time that DAQRI has mined former Microsoft talent this year. In March, DAQRI announced the hiring of Xbox creator Seamus Blackley and the acquisition of his team of scientists and engineers from Heat Engine, LLC.

Every Friday, Next Reality reviews the latest headlines from the financial side of augmented and mixed reality. This weekly Market Reality column covers funding announcements, mergers and acquisitions, market analysis, and the like. Check out previous editions of Market Reality for more news you may have missed.

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