German industrial giant Siemens
has invested in a virtual reality start-up aiming to bring the technology to
heavy industry and provide a European rival to the likes of Facebook's Oculus.
Siemens joined the $31m (£24m) funding round in Varjo, led by Atomico, one of
London's top venture capital firms. Varjo, a two year-old Finnish start-up, has
developed a virtual reality headset that offers human-eye levels of detail. The
start-up is working with the likes industry giants including Airbus, Audi, Saab
and Volkswagen to optimise virtual reality for their businesses. The funding is
a major vote of confidence in a European challenge to Facebook-owned Oculus,
which makes the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, and Magic Leap, which is
building a set to augmented reality goggles.
The start-up claims the level of
detail its headset gives offers an additional level of precision with its
virtual reality imaging. It offers in the 50 megapixels of detail per eye, 20
times that of a consumer device. Varjo said it is planning to expand its team
from 80 to around 200. It will launch the first version of its headset later
this year. The start-up said that by using virtual reality for precision
design, industrial giants can save millions of pounds on design processes on
new products. The company is made up of former Nokia and Microsoft engineers,
many of whom worked on Microsoft's own Hololens headset. The start-up uses dual
panels for each eye in its headset, while most headsets use just one display
per eye. Varijo gained the backing from Siemens' investment vehicle Next 47.
More information: