Los Angeles-based mobile augmented reality headset developer Mira Labs Inc. announced Wednesday that it has raised $1 million in a seed funding round to pave the way for its Prism AR product.

This funding round, led by Greylock Partners, Founders Fund Angel and Macro Ventures, brings Mira’s total funding raised to date to $2.5 million.

The company first made waves in the augmented reality ecosystem when it announced its affordable — with a price tag of $99 — AR headset called the Prism in July that would work with the iPhone.

Augmented reality works by taking what people can currently see and overlaying 3-D objects and images directly over the field of view. By doing so, it “augments” the vision of users by adding virtual objects to the world.

The Prism operates a lot like Google Inc.’s virtual reality mobile-based headset, Google Cardboard, which allows users to use a cheap headset to turn their Android smartphone into a VR device. In the case of Prism, Mira supplies a headband and headset with an internal prism-lens that can mount a smartphone to make cheap AR possible.

“The reception we’ve seen for the Prism headset and our vision for enabling developers to create premium, shared AR experiences has been overwhelming,” said Ben Taft, co-founder and chief executive of Mira. “We’ve already seen select developers build incredible experiences with our software development kit, and we’re eager to see what the wider community creates now that our software is more widely available.”

Powered by the Unity 3D game engine, Mira’s SDK will allow developers to produce unique AR experiences or take existing assets for augmented reality with the Prism headset and accompanying remote. Mira’s current intention is to reach out to developers so that a wide variety of apps are available at the consumer launch of the headset.

Features of the Mira headset and SDK include stereoscopic camera rendering, in order to provide the illusion of depth for AR 3-D imagery, as well as a lens distortion warp mesh to provide clarity to projected images and front-facing camera collaboration. The Prism also includes three-degrees-of-freedom orientation tracking with six-degrees-of-freedom optical tracking for optical markers to help track objects and remotes. Support for Vuforia and other major tracking libraries is coming soon.

The Mira Prism comes with its own remote control accessory using the Bluetooth Low Energy profile. The remote includes touchpad support, two programmable buttons and a mechanical trigger. Additional features, along with tips and best practices for getting started with Mira’s SDK can be found at mirareality.com/developers.

Competition for low-cost augmented is limited currently, with very few startups and companies building for that segment of the industry. Most AR currently occurs in a handheld experience with mobile phones and tablets via apps such as the extremely popular Pokemon Go. The Mira Prism could see competition from the Aryzon Kickstarted AR Cardboardlike headset and future startups building in this ecosystem.

Although still unreleased, the Microsoft HoloLens has dominated possibilities for AR headsets, but at $3,000, it’s unlikely to have mass appeal.

The Prism is currently compatible with iPhone 6, 6S, 7 and 8 with support for additional iPhone models and manufacturers coming soon. Mira opened pre-orders for the Prism in July and will begin shipping the Discovery Edition Prism headset this holiday, with a wider consumer release scheduled for 2018.

Image: Mira