The additional funds will enable Ultraleap to develop and commercialise its technologies for existing and next generation computing platforms.
New investors include Tencent, British Patient Capital through its Future Fund: Breakthrough programme and CMB International, together with existing shareholders Mayfair Equity Partners and IP Group.
Commenting on the fundraise, 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.”
Ultraleap’s fifth-generation hand tracking platform, known as Gemini, has made hand tracking software 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.
This investment round will enable Ultraleap to bring Gemini to different operating systems and increase their investment in tooling to enable developers to build more applications.
Carter added, “This raise doesn’t just give us greater resources to scale, but our investors provide us insights and access to our targets markets as well. The timing aligns with the demand we are seeing from our customers across key verticals."
