Rumors from back in September of Magic Leap raising a Series D investment were confirmed today as the company revealed an additional $502 million in venture funding, led by a Singaporean investment firm Temasek, with participation from strategic and financial investors.

The latest investment in the secretive augmented reality company comes in the form of a brief press release posted to the company’s website. In addition to new investors, Temasek, EDBI, Grupo Globo, and Janus Henderson Investors, investors from prior rounds have added more fuel to the fire, including Alibaba Group, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Google LLC, J.P. Morgan Investment Management, and T. Rowe Price, Inc.

The press release also includes a nebulous new mission statement in the ‘About Magic Leap’ section:

Magic Leap’s mission is to harmonize people and technology, amplifying the best parts of you, to create a better, more unified world.

Though the company has now raised nearly $2 billion in venture funding, they have remained tight-lipped on details of the “Digital Lightfield” AR technology that they’re building. A recently released video was the latest tease from the company, offering little more than vague statements about magic, though the bits and pieces that have either been revealed or leaked about what the company is doing suggests they’re developing their own AR headset.

In a recently granted patent (filed in 2015), the Magic Leap showed a small form-factor headset, that while not entirely fashionable, looks to fit the description provided to Bloomberg. | Image courtesy US Patent Office

Bloomberg, which was on the money regarding the Series D investment back in September, at the time also reported that Magic Leap plans to soon release a limited number of its first device which would be priced between $1,500 and $2,000.

Recently the company’s Chief Game Designer offered some insight into the types of AR experiences the company has been building internally, and talked about what he believes will be the format of AR content which will “define a generation.”

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • NooYawker

    They’re really grabbing investors hoping to get in on ground floor of the next big thing. Even if magic leap releases an AR device how can they compete against actual billion dollar companies like MS, google and Apple.

    • Thetrick

      They won’t. They will hope that some of these big companies and manufactures will pick up their platform and use their platform for AR development.

      • Toffotin

        But isn’t Google already one of the biggest investors in Magic Leap?

        • Thetrick

          Right, but if you look at the stuff magic leap is working on is all andriod. This is google’s platform and therefore will use google’s services so there is plenty of benefits for google.

          • Michael

            Which means that it has even more backing than we initially thought, pegging Magic Leap and its product at the top.

    • evo_9

      They really only have one play and that’s building out a patent portfolio so they can suck money out of good hard working companies that actually provide products to consumers.

  • Dude

    2000 mio $ is alot of money and from big investors. Would like to see the same presentation as the investors have seen.

  • brubble

    ….yawn. Get back to me when or if it actually becomes more than just words and speculation…

  • Mei Ling

    It could be the case of “if these major companies are throwing huge amounts of cash into this project, why shouldn’t we?” or that company representatives sent to “inspect” the progress of this project are genuinely impressed. Hopefully it’s the latter..

  • Raphael

    So they’ve raised 5% of the total funding they need to bring magic leap to market.

  • evo_9

    Seriously fuck these guys and stop reporting on them until they show something at the least. By giving them any attention at all you are just encouraging them to keep scamming for more and more money.

    If they even manage to ship something it won’t matter, they have over hyped this to the point that nothing they do or release will be good enough. What a bunch of clowns.

    • Wow dude. You are exceptionally pessimistic. Are you not getting enough Magic in your life?

      • evo_9

        Nah I’m good thx for asking though ;)

  • Lucio Lima

    bla,bla,bla…

  • Zachary Scott Dickerson

    More hype. I’m starting to think this is all a money laundering scheme for big investors.

    • Geogie

      It’s happened before.

  • Lucidfeuer

    If had a corporation, I would (but in truth wouldn’t, by strategy, principle and other more respectable optimisation schemes) invest in Magic Leap.

    This is a typical tech/”innovation” tax money washing scheme. A 3/4/5 years max technological “leap” from a current market is possible when the technology exists and is feasible to develop and implement, but a consumer or prosumer AR glasses device is not possible until 8-12 years in the future.

    That’s why there’s not a single doubt that this is a fiscal optimisation scheme, which all companies have to do, but a very dirty shameful one given all the money they invest in non-practical technology when tons of start-up, engineers, entrepreneurs and creators don’t even have access to VCs circuits…fuck them.

    • Lucidfeuer

      By the way, this also means that as soon as the product is released, without a single sale number communicated, there’ll be an IPO.