Yet massive amounts of money were flowing down to Dania Beach, Florida, a town of 30,000 just south of Fort Lauderdale. To date, Magic Leap has raised nearly $1.4 billion in venture capital, including $794 million this past February, reportedly the largest C round in history. Seemingly every blue-chip tech investor has a chunk, including Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, Google, JPMorgan, Fidelity and Alibaba, plus there's backing from less conventional sources such as Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment, the maker of films like Godzilla and Jurassic World. Magic Leap was valued at $4.5 billion in its latest round of financing.
Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever
Magic Leap's innovation isn't just a high-tech display--it's a disruption machine. This technology could affect every business that uses screens or computers and many that don't. It could kill the $120 billion market for flat-panel displays and shake the $1 trillion global consumer-electronics business to its core. The applications are profound. Throw out your PC, your laptop and your mobile phone, because the computing power you need will be in your glasses, and they can make a display appear anywhere, at any size you like.
Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever
For that matter, they can make anything appear, like directions to your next meeting, drawn in bright yellow arrows along the roads of your town. You'll be able to see what that new couch you're thinking of buying looks like in your living room, from every conceivable angle, under every lighting condition, without leaving your home. Even the least mechanically inclined will be able to repair their automobiles, with an interactive program highlighting exactly which part needs to be replaced and alerting you if you're doing it wrong. And Magic Leap is positioned to profit from every interaction: not just from the hardware and software it will sell but also, one imagines, from the torrent of data it could collect, analyze--and resell.
Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever
In a mixed reality world, computing power isn't confined to a gadget on your desk. It's something that you can link to any object, real or virtual, giving it awareness of its location, intelligence about its purpose and insight on how you might want to use it. "Think of it as the future state of computing," Abovitz says, "where the world is your desktop." First we had mainframes, then PCs, then mobile devices. If Magic Leap has its way, the next generation will be virtual.
Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever
International Data Corp. says that worldwide revenues for the augmented and virtual reality market will grow from $5.2 billion this year to more than $162 billion in 2020.
Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever
Apple is working on AR as well, but it's unclear whether it is developing its own headset or adding capabilities to the iPhone. Silicon Valley startups like Meta (which has raised $73 million) and Atheer (a reported $23 million) are working on their own AR headsets and would presumably be natural acquisition candidates if they are successful.
Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever