Pimax, the China-based creator known for its wide field of view (FOV) VR headsets, announced it’s secured a $30 million series C1 financing round, something the company says will aid in the rollout of its new portfolio of VR devices.

The series C1 was led by Beijing-based investment firm Tuanmu Capital. This follows the company’s $20 million series B in 2020, bringing the company’s lifetime outside investment to over $69 million.

In a press statement, the company says the funds will be used to accelerate growth of its coming line of VR headsets, Pimax Crystal and Pimax Portal, enhance its position as both a consumer and enterprise-focused company, and increase investment in R&D.

Founded in 2015, Pimax is best known for its first Pimax “8K” headset Kickstarted in 2017, a consumer PC VR headset that included dual 4K panels providing an estimated 200-degree FOV, by far one of the largest in the industry at the time. Even today, many consumer headsets, such as Meta Quest 2 and HTC Vive XR Elite, feature FOVs around 110 degrees.

Pimax Crystal | Photo by Road to VR

The company has since gone on to offer multiple iterations of its wide FOV headset, but also is set to launch both its VR standalone Pimax Crystal and hybrid Portal device, the latter of which can convert between a Nintendo Switch-style gaming handheld and a VR headset.

Both Pimax Crystal and Pimax Portal are expected to release at some point in “early 2023”, with Crystal available for pre-order on the company’s website and Portal still in the fulfillment stage from its successful 2022 Kickstarter, which garnered just over $350,000 from backers.

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“Of course, we’re delighted with this new round of funding, as it allows us to boost our production capacity to meet the rapidly growing demand for our new VR products, as well as to improve both our hardware and software further,” said Pimax Founder Robin Weng. “We’ve been innovating VR technology and we will keep on doing that in the future, always pushing the limits of what is possible through technology.”

The Shanghai-based company now boasts over 300 employees in offices spread across offices in San Jose, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Qingdao, and Chengdu.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ViRGiN

    Truly amazing how pimax are successful at brainwashing people. Congrats on the hefty investments, but you still haven’t delivered any new shit, fixed anything old. The website is a joke, marketing is a joke, your white faced representatives are a joke. This company was built purely on those desperate pcvr users needs, yet they never captured even 0.1% of the market. What a catastrophe.

    • Thud

      “your white faced representatives”

      You never cease to amaze me Virgin. Every time I read one of your comments you say something stupider than the last. Thanks for showing your true character so clearly.

      • ViRGiN

        You wrote a lot, and yet said nothing.
        Are you insane or something?

        Joshua is a long time chinese gov representative, surviving through freelancing and employed by pimax as the only person capable of shilling for the company.
        The most screen-friendly person to exist in that sphere; he did deliver profesionalis as far as pimax guidelines allowed, but everything he has ever said is nothing more than overpromising, and always underdelivering.

        You sound like one of the first 100 customers who preordered 12K, and is now getting triggered.

        Enjoy your dead PCVR.

        • Vodka Chartreuse

          I paid $400 for a Pimax 5K+ 4 years ago on Kickstarter. To this day, no other headset can beat its field of view and Sweet Spot, and certainly not at such a price. In terms of image quality, sub-pixel or Hz, it’s still quite honorable today and so I had no reason to change it until now.
          Here are the facts.

          So I would be very happy to have the Crystal that I could test in a show. And which is the only headset with a large FOV, autonomous, while having a lighouse compatibility to be able to couple it with trackers for full body tracking which I use under Unreal Engine 5.

          I’m going to have a lot of fun with WIRELESS PC games in high visual Fidelity in a TRUE FOV.

          The only thing that’s dead is probably your soul.

          • ViRGiN

            You misspelled gorilla tag.
            You’re a pixels junkie, with no self respect. Body tracking basically doesn’t exist, especially on steamvr. Cope.

          • Vodka Chartreuse

            A pixels Junkie with Gorilla tag…
            Body tracking basically doesn’t exist…

            There are places with gentlemen in white, they will give you pills, you will see, it will be good for you there. xD

          • ViRGiN

            Oh, you were talking about htc vive trackers/tundra? Like the name implies, they are a tracking pucks. They don’t track your body. Stick them to your dog and you got yourself a dog tracker yeeeeeeaaah!

            And funny how futuristic you’re attempting to be by talking about ue5, when vr is nothing but experimental buggy mess lol. Epic haven’t focused on vr for a long time.

          • Vodka Chartreuse

            Kid ! Go Back to Call of…

          • ViRGiN

            So, can you link to body tracking sdk or you’ll never be able to provide it since it doesn’t exist?

          • Arashi

            At 103 degrees I would not call the Crystal’s FoV ‘large’ at all

        • Thud

          “You wrote a lot, and yet said nothing.”

          I think I clearly said you are a piece of shit. If you were unable to discern that I’ll say it now more clearly.

          • ViRGiN

            muh peemax

  • Lloyd Sturdy

    I think it was not last October but the October before that (2021) that Pimax announced their Reality 12K headset that would be out in about a year together with a marketing campaign stating that if you by the 8KX (for about £1000) you will get the price you paid off the cost of the 12K. I mentioned on a Pimax forum that it could be deceptive marketing due to Pimax’s record of promising a lot and not delivering which I promptly got flamed for. Now nearly 18 months later they are still pushing this campaign but not sight nor sound of the Reality 12K – not a mention in this article. This leads me to wonder even more about the ethics of running the ‘get your money back on an 8KX when you buy a Reality 12K’. I’ve given up with Pimax due to this style of marketing. I have to admit though that I don’t follow Pimax that closely anymore so please correct me if you feel I’ve got something wrong.

    • ViRGiN

      That “promotion” was nothing but to get rid off the old stock. The 12K will be priced 100% higher of 8KX, equaling to zero discount at all. But it’s coming from the same company who sells “mystery boxes”, and even added a USB mouse to some of their VR bundles lol.

    • Arashi

      Lol the pimax forum is a scam, just like the company itself

  • Cl

    Crystal is already supposed to be released and shipping preorders…

    • Arashi

      LOL they already released it TWICE

      • ViRGiN

        They fixed the distortions caused by lenses several times already. Truly an innovative company.

  • Arashi

    Great, more money to create half baked device and then lie about the specs like the FoV. That’s just what we need.

  • Peter Dulong

    I bought thier 4k VR Headset..returned it cause it didn’t have 6 DOF then got sucked in again with thier 5k Headset Returned it..I’m not Buying from them again.

  • Zerofool

    the company says the funds will be used to accelerate growth of its coming line of VR headsets

    Nooooo!

    That’s exactly the opposite of what we need – they have to focus on one or two devices, engineer them and test them thoroughly, going through several iterations and then release them to the public. With their past products, they’ve been releasing improved revisions during the lifetime of the product and that’s why I’d never buy a Pimax product in the first 6-12 months of sales, unless they change their way of doing business away from this behavior, which is obviously not happening, quite the opposite actually.

    And that’s sad because they are the only player in the industry that makes good wide-FOV HMDs (in their final revision) costing under $5K.

  • Anonymous

    Amazing how clueless investors still fund this future-less trainwreck Chinese spyware company. Unless of course the fund itself came from the CCP?

    Even if you take out the CCP spyware accusation, these guys always overpromise and under-deliver. Just merely stacking up resolution and FOV is no way the way to go forward as there are so many other innovations can be made.

    • Mradr

      While I would normally agree – I feel like even the CCP doesnt look at them. They’re too small for the normal channels. Granted, if they grow any bigger they will be, but I would fear more on Pico devices than I would be these only because they’re not running their own OS.

  • XRC

    Enjoyed testing the sword controllers last year for Skarredghost, found Pimax very straightforward
    to deal with and responsive to questions.

    Looking forward to testing Crystal headset once it’s ready to ship.

  • domahman

    I have a pimax, it’s collecting dust.