FOVE develops virtual reality head-mounted displays with integrated eye-tracking and foveated rendering technology. The company showed an early prototype at Disrupt San Francisco in 2014 and previously raised $480,650 on Kickstarter. CEO and co-founder Yuka Kojima said the company delayed initial shipments to fall 2016 due to component sourcing challenges but is working to keep that timeline. FOVE says it is interested in licensing its eye-tracking technology to other headset makers and is developing additional intellectual property around eye-tracking and foveated rendering. It has formed strategic partnerships with new investors to accelerate product development and content creation. The company faces competition from major VR players (HTC, Oculus, Sony) and other eye-tracking firms (Eyefluence, Tobii, SMI). FOVE builds a virtual reality headset that is controlled by eye movement, incorporating integrated eye-tracking for input. The company began in an academic collaboration facility at the University of Tokyo and has iterated its hardware into a lighter, smaller, and more comfortable design with updated clasps. FOVE ran a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $480,000 from nearly 1,500 backers (the campaign goal was $250,000). It also secured additional, undisclosed funding from Samsung Ventures. The company is using the crowdfunding proceeds and Samsung funding to fulfill backer orders and to add functionality, including pursuing integration with Valve's Lighthouse tracking system and OpenVR. Near-term plans focus on delivering units to backers and continuing software and hardware integration work.

Total raised

$11M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Mar 2016