INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
While Apple and Microsoft strain to sell augmented reality as the next major computing platform, many of the startups aiming to beat them to
the punch are crashing and burning.Daqri, which built enterprise-grade AR headsets, has shuttered its HQ, laid off many of its employees and
is selling off assets ahead of a shutdown, former employees and sources close to the company tell TechCrunch.In an email obtained by
TechCrunch, the nearly 10-year-old company told its customers that it was pursuing an asset sale and was shutting down its cloud and
funded augmented reality startups seeking to court enterprise customers.Earlier this year, Osterhout Design Group unloaded its AR glasses
patents after acquisition talks with Magic Leap, Facebook and others stalled
Meta, an AR headset startup that raised $73 million from VCs including Tencent, also sold its assets earlier this year after the company ran
out of cash.Daqri faced substantial challenges from competing headset makers, including Magic Leap and Microsoft, who were backed by more
expansive war chests and institutional partnerships
While the headset company struggled to compete for enterprise customers, Daqri benefitted from investor excitement surrounding the broader
That is, until the investment climate for AR startups cooled.Daqri was, at one point, speaking with a large private-equity firm about
financing ahead of a potential IPO, but as the technical realities facing other AR companies came to light, the firm backed out and the deal
crumbled, we are told.As of mid-2017, a Wall Street Journal report detailed that Daqri had raised $275 million in funding
Photonics, a small UK startup that was building holographic display technologies for automotive customers
out from Daqri as a separate company called Envisics, leaving the Daqri team to focus wholly on bringing augmented reality to enterprise
customers.The remaining head-worn AR division failed to gain momentum after prolonged setbacks in adoption of its AR smart glasses,
several executives did not respond to requests for comment.
