Chinese Augmented Reality Glasses Maker Nreal Completes C Round of Financing Exceeding $100 Million
Chinese media outlet 36Kr reported on Thursday that Chinese augmented reality (AR) glasses maker Nreal has raised $100 million in a funding round led by NIO Capital, YF Capital and Hongtai Aplus.
Xu Chi, Founder and CEO of Nreal, said: “This round of financing will be used for research and development of new products and technologies and mass production of core optical modules.”
In the past 12 months, Nreal has accumulated over $150 million in financing, with investors including Kuaishou, CICC Capital, Sequoia Capital China and Hillhouse Capital’s GL Ventures. Xu said in an interview with CNBC in July that the company hopes to go public within five years.
Founded in 2017, Nreal has its own operating system called Nebula that runs on its headsets. Like Apple, with iOS on iPhones, developers can make apps for Nebula which consumers can then use via Nreal headsets.
Up to now, Nreal has secured cooperation with LGU+, KDDI, Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone. In Korea, Japan, Germany and Spain, consumers can purchase Nreal Light mixed reality glasses on operators’ e-commerce websites and offline stores.
At present, Nreal offers an independently developed and designed optical module, with a field angle of 52 degrees – equivalent to presenting a huge screen of 135 inches at 3.5 meters. At the same time, it is at the industry-leading level in terms of resolution, contrast, color restoration, brightness and distortion control.
SEE ALSO: Make Mixed Reality for Everyone: Interview with Nreal CEO Xu, Chi
Zhu Yikai, a partner of YF Capital, said: “With the maturity of AR industry, AR has great application potential in consumption scenarios and industrial production scenarios. We look forward to seeing Nreal’s products create greater values.”
The AR/VR field has been favored by capital markets this year. In August, ByteDance announced the acquisition of Pico, a VR manufacturer, which caused enthusiasm for VR among investors to reach a high point.
