Varjo, the Helsinki, Finland-based creators of high pixel density VR/AR headsets for enterprise, today announced it’s closed a $54 million Series C funding round. The company says it will use the funds to accelerate the global expansion and development of its XR hardware and software products.

Investors include Tesi, NordicNinja, Swisscanto Invest by Zürcher Kantonalbank, Lifeline Ventures, Atomico, EQT Ventures and Volvo Cars Tech Fund.

The Series C financing brings the company’s overall total funds to $100 million to date.

In addition to the latest funding round, the company’s COO, Timo Toikkanen, will be leading Varjo as CEO. Co-founder and previous CEO, Niko Eiden, will be continuing as CXO and as a board member.

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“We are seeing tremendous demand for virtual and mixed reality use cases, particularly as much of the world continues to work remotely,” said Toikkanen. “When you combine the photorealistic resolution and accurate, integrated eye tracking found in our devices with the broad software compatibility we offer, the possibilities for creating, training and running research in immersive environments are endless. With support from our growing group of investors, we look forward to scaling our operations and delivering the cutting-edge technology our customers need to transform the way they work.”

Varjo is known for its enterprise-level “human-eye resolution” VR/AR headsets, including the XR-1 Developer Edition, VR-2 and VR-2 Pro. Companies such as Volvo Cars, Boeing, Audi, and Siemens use Varjo headsets for industrial applications including training and simulation, design and engineering, and research and development.

Since its founding in 2016, Varjo has expanded its global operations and reseller network to over 40 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific, with the launch of sales and direct shipping to markets such as Singapore, Israel, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

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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.
  • Andrew Jakobs

    So you see, demand for high priced VR headsets is still high within industrial companies.

    • mellott124

      It’s still there like it always has been. Just a different scale than consumer.

  • xyzs

    The day high definition vr screens are available, Varjo is worth nothing – overnight-.

    Because their only advantage is the retina center (that they never succeeded to make eye tracked like they promised at the beginning by the way).

    So basically it’s a huge size headset with a tiny high definition zone that costs the price of a car… and investors think that the few years it has regarding partial high definition lead are worth tens of millions… lol

    • _vrdude_

      “The day high definition vr screens are available”

      This is a question and not a question of “when” but “if”. BOE, LG and eMagin have 4K x 4K + panels in the lab and showcased publicly. BOE all the way back in 2017 and LG in 2018. So for 2-3 years the prototypes haven’t been announced to be mass produced even for enterprise. The issue is yield and cost. It’s not that it can’t be manufactured, but manufactured reliably and cheaply. It’s the same issue as trying to increase CPU and GPU sizes: it’s so difficult companies instead prefer to try to shrink transistors instead, for decades.

      And then a 4K x 4K panel wouldn’t match Varjo which would need a 6K x 6K equivalent panel instead. Varjo is also future-proof in the sense that the peripheral view FOV can be increased to Pimax sizes while with a single panel you would need a ridiculous 9K x 7K panel per eye.

  • Ardra Diva

    funny how Varjo always has naysayers, but they’re doing what everybody keeps pining for. Providing the highest-quality solution available. Maybe it’s just sour grapes because they aren’t focused on the consumer. I believe that VR/AR/XR/LBGTQVLXR (haha) will be the child of many parents. We should be cheering on every innovation coming out of Varjo, Facebook/Oculus, any of them.

    • xyzs

      Personally, I cheer innovation from Oculus (best overall RnD and accessibility), Valve (best tracking and best overall gaming solution) and StarVR (best full FOV), Pico (for their good standalone hardware even if enterprise only)…

      Varjo is just selling a average bulky 10k headset with a small high def zone only in the center (from a technical point of view, their solution is absolutely not good because it’s partially solving the resolution issue, and their tech is not futur proof at all : once screens are higher resolution, what is their value ?).

      • Ardra Diva

        Smart, successful companies are investing millions in this, so apparently they disagree with you.

        • xyzs

          History is full of smart, successful companies investing in the wrong things. Smart Softbank & WeWork, smart Google and Magic Leap , smart mega banks and subprimes (examples can come by containers…). So let them disagree with me, it’s they money after all..

      • Dave

        I can see where you are coming from. But have you seen there roadmap? Do you know the same information as there investers know? And finally the big one, have you actually tried the Varjo for yourself… I bet the investers have…

  • Compliments to Varjo! It is a very interesting startup with one of the few XR headsets that has a different approach from the other ones

  • JS

    They have a great idea. If they can increase the center field of view to over 60 degrees at while staying over 50 PPD that would be great. That means basically a 4K display in the middle surrounded by an HD display. Of course it may need an RTX 3080 to support that at the required 100+ fps (basically two 5K displays running at over 100 fps).