A $6 bn augmented reality startup, that is yet to sell a product, raises $461 mn

Magic Leap, a Florida-based startup working on augmented reality devices, has raised USD 461 million in the second closing of a round of funding totaling USD 963 million, the company said on Wednesday.

The current round takes its total fund raising to nearly USD 2.3 billion.

The investment was led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment arm. The company had raised USD 502 million in the first closing of this round of funding in October last year. At that time, the funding was led by Temasek and had EDBI, Grupo Globo and Janus Henderson Investors as other interested parties.

Big names like Alibaba Group, Google, JP Morgan Investment Management are already invested in the startup.

The company which is present in multiple locations in the US and in Europe and has over 1,400 employees is yet to ship a single product to date. Magic Leap plans to start the shipping of products sometime later this year.

The first product to be shipped will be the headset, that superimposes 3-D virtual images on the real world, and will ‘seamlessly blend the digital and physical world.’

Notwithstanding the promise of Magic Leap which has drawn intense interest from all quarters, sceptics have been consistently saying the company has overstated its ability to follow through.

The company has also been involved in a number of controversies in recent past. In February, the company sued an employee who it said was trying to extort money by threating to file a lawsuit against it.

Reportedly, the company also called in the police last week complaining that an employee stole USD 1 million from it.