Ultraleap, a provider of interface technologies including hand tracking and mid-air haptics, has completed a £60 million ($82 million) Series D round of investment.
The raise will enable Ultraleap to further develop and commercialise its technologies for existing and next generation computing platforms.
Significant new investors including Tencent, British Patient Capital through its Future Fund: Breakthrough programme and CMB International, are joined by existing shareholders Mayfair Equity Partners and IP Group plc, who further cemented their confidence in Ultraleap by investing in the round.
Commenting on the fundraise, Tom Carter, Ultraleap CEO (pictured above), said: “The metaverse concept is not new to Ultraleap. It has always been our mission to remove boundaries between physical and digital worlds. The pandemic has accelerated the rise of the term as more people now understand the power of enhancing the physical world with digital elements.
“For Ultraleap, this new era is not constrained to VR headsets. Like the internet, it is a reality we will interact with in all parts of life: at home, in the office, in cars, or out in public. Our aim with this Series D raise is to accelerate the transition to the primary interface – your hands – because there are no physical controllers, buttons or touchscreens in anyone's vision of the metaverse.”
Ultraleap’s recent announcement of their fifth-generation hand tracking platform, known as Gemini, means for the first time, their hand tracking software is now available across multiple platforms, camera systems and third-party hardware. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 chipset and Varjo’s VR-3 and XR-3 headsets have already shipped with Gemini built in.
With this investment round, Ultraleap will continue to bring Gemini to different operating systems and increase their investment in tooling to enable developers to build more applications. Ultraleap will also continue to invest in R&D to drive their machine-learning-based hand tracking even further ahead.