UPDATED 00:05 EDT / FEBRUARY 14 2017

EMERGING TECH

Holographic startup 8i raises $27M in new round led by Time Warner

Holographic technology startup 8i Labs Inc. has raised $27 million Series B in a round led by Time Warner Investments.

Founded in 2014, 8i is building a consumer media platform that lets users create, experience and share immersive 3D video of real people, for virtual reality, augmented reality and the web. The company is aiming to enable everyone to connect with each other in the closest way to real-life through the use of immersive holograms that deliver a true 3D capture of people, allowing viewers to walk around real humans in VR.

8i is fairly well progressed down the path to delivering its version, debuting its Holo consumer mobile app at the Code Media Conference Monday. The app allows users to create mixed-reality content with holograms of their favorite celebrities, brands, and characters that can be viewed in their real-world environment. Users also can take videos and photos from that AR view that they can share with friends across their social channels and messaging apps.

The company’s tech doesn’t work alone, though. It relies in part on Project Tango, an AR platform launched by Google Inc. back in 2014 that gives mobile devices a human-scale understanding of space and motion. The Tango platform has been slow to get support from mobile manufacturers. The first phone with Tango support, the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, only launched in June. Not surprisingly, the very same phone is the only phone that is currently able to run Holo, according to Upload VR.

Including the new funding, 8i has raised $41.8 million. The new round also included Baidu Ventures, Hearst Ventures, Verizon Ventures, One Ventures, Carsten Maschmeyer’s Seed & Speed Ventures and a number of unnamed existing investors. The company said it would use the new funding to bring Halo to a wider variety of devices.

Image courtesy of 8i

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