Light Field Lab Inc., a company developing big-as-life holographic display technology, announced today the closure of a $28 million funding round that will be used to further the creation of holograms for entertainment and consumers without the need for headsets.

A company spokesperson said the Series A funds will be used to scale Light Field Lab’s technology from prototype to product. It’s capable of projecting holographic images in place without the need for a head-mounted display like those used for augmented reality wearables such as smart glasses.

With this technology, holograms could be projected in large-scale entertainment venues. They can create floating real-world 3-D experiences with up to hundreds of gigapixels of resolution, including modular video walls for live events and large-scale installations.

The technology has been described as presenting a similar potential to the fictional “holodeck” from the science fiction TV show “Star Trek.” 

“Light Field Lab’s holographic display technologies enable entirely new business opportunities across consumer and enterprise markets,” Ingo Ramesohl, managing director of Bosch Venture Capital said. “Light Field Lab has the leadership and technical expertise to bring this vision of the holographic future to life.”

Although the company’s initial target will be large-scale venues for location-based entertainment, such as concerts and presentations, the company’s vision to ultimately build its technology for the consumer market. That means also creating TV-sized panels that could be used in a living room as well.

In addition to the hardware and technology of the holographic displays themselves, the company is also working on developing the platforms and channels necessary for distributing holographic content.

According to Kristina Serafim, investment director at Verizon Ventures, the bandwidth to deliver holographic content would need a next-generation communications network. In partnership with Verizon, the features of the company’s new 5G network would help greatly at bringing this technology to life with high bandwidth, low latency and consistent speeds.

“Light Field Lab’s innovative solution will help build the 5G future for Verizon’s consumer, business, network and media customers,” Serafim said.

The screen size used by Light Field Lab’s prototypes in 2018 measured around six by four inches, but that’s intended to be scaled up to displays for living rooms and even further for extremely large-scale venues.

This round raises the total funding for the company to $35 million between this Series A and a seed funding round in 2018.

Lead investors in this funding round were joined by strategic investments from Samsung Ventures, Verizon Ventures, Comcast, Liberty Global Ventures, NTT Docomo Ventures Inc. and Hella Ventures, along with Khosla Ventures, Alumni Ventures Group, R7 Partners and Acme Capital.

“We look forward to working with our syndicate of manufacturing, content creation and distribution partners to uncover opportunities and alliances across a range of vertical markets as we take our technology to the next phase,” said Jon Karafin, chief executive of Light Field Lab.

Image: Light Field Lab