Tactical Haptics develops an ungrounded haptic motion controller that applies in-hand shear forces via actuated sliding plates on the grip to recreate friction and shear sensations for VR. The company’s initial focus is gaming VR and it plans to ship a developer kit (including mini-games) that can replace HTC Vive or Oculus Touch controllers and support multiple VR platforms and mobile VR. The NSF SBIR Phase II award is a two-year R&D grant to build an MVP by reducing device size and mass, improving ergonomics, and lowering cost. Tactical Haptics received a $749,000 NSF SBIR Phase II grant and closed a $1.47M seed round for a combined $2.2M to accelerate development and expand the team. The seed round was led by SV Tech Ventures and the Youku Global Media Fund, with participation from SIG China, Sand Hill Angels, and the Stanford-StartX fund. The company’s controller works with tracking systems such as Valve’s SteamVR and Oculus Constellation, and the product has been featured in NBC Learn’s Science of Innovation series. Founded in 2013 and based in Palo Alto, California, Tactical Haptics has a staff of seven.

Total raised

$2M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Nov 2016