Leyard Hong Kong invested US$2 million to participate in the establishment of a special purpose company. The special purpose company has a total investment of US$5 million and holds a total of 217,100 Magic Leap preferred shares. A special purpose vehicle is a company established specifically for this exchange investment and will not make other investments in the future. The price of the shares transferred by the special purpose company is the same as the valuation of Alibaba’s investment in Magic Leap in February 2016.
According to disclosures, Magic Leap, INC was established on May 5, 2011. It is mainly engaged in the research and development and promotion of digital light field augmented reality technology. It is a world-renowned augmented reality (AR) company with more than 500 employees. Its shareholders include Google, Alibaba, Qualcomm, Warner Brothers, KKR, Morgan Stanley, etc. The development direction of Magic Leap is to directly make the real world into a displayed "desktop", that is, MR, to perfectly present the virtual world scene into the real world. The advanced optical fiber projector, retinal projection technology and powerful endoscopic technology used by Magic Leap can completely solve the problems of viewing angle and vertigo, allowing people to experience virtual reality (mixed reality) in exactly the same way as they naturally observe the world.
Magic Leap is an augmented reality platform similar to Microsoft HoloLens. Its main research and development direction is to project three-dimensional images into people's field of vision. Magic Leap said that achieving this effect requires a seamless combination of core processors, sensors, and software, plus some exclusive technologies. Obviously, Magic Leap seems to be deliberately maintaining a sense of mystery. Judging from the multiple promotional videos it has released, its application form in the fields of imaging, games, and education, its realistic rendering and perfect combination with real scenes are impressive. Magic Leap calls its technology "dynamic light field signal" or "digital light field". It essentially projects the image directly into the retina of the eyeball to "deceive" the brain and greatly enhance the sense of reality and presence.
Leyard said that the company's VR strategy is a pan-VR strategy, which is a broad concept of VR/AR/MR. It is an extension of Leyard's sound, light, and electrical technologies and products into the VR field, and is integrated with the existing VR/AR/MR fields. The company has already made extensive investments in the VR/AR industry, investing hundreds of millions in VR/AR hardware and display, VR/AR cultural creativity, VR/AR industry applications, VR/AR content production, VR/AR industry support and other fields.
For the purpose of this investment, the company stated that Leyard was the first in the world to develop and produce LED small-pitch TV products, and has strong accumulation in naked-eye 3D display and large-scale virtual reality three-dimensional immersion system augmented reality. Since 2014, the company has been focusing on the field of virtual reality. The digital light field augmented reality technology used by Magic Leap is the forefront of virtual reality and the ultimate display technology. The company will continue to carry out research and development and cooperation on future ultimate display technology. With the strategic upgrade, Leyard will rely on its own channel resource advantages of more than 1 million B-side projects in the world and China to carry out commercial application layout. In the future, it can introduce international cutting-edge technologies and products represented by Magic Leap to become a leader in virtual reality commercial applications.
ANNA