
Magic Leap raising up to $1B in new round - Stanleyc23
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/12/ar-mystery-startup-magic-leap-looking-to-raise-as-much-as-1b-in-new-round/
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ChuckMcM
I'm guessing they will announce an immersive universe with a lot of pop
references to the '80s where you can transact business, go to school, or just
adventure :-).

More seriously, the last time a company spent this much money in a vacuum it
did not turn out well for them. I'd love to believe they have an idea worth
billions but struggle to come up with any plausible way to imagine such a
value without major dependencies on a much bigger ecosystem. (see Occulus Rift
and the computer gaming industry as an example of inter dependence issues)

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Alex3917
> the last time a company spent this much money in a vacuum it did not turn
> out well for them.

And the one before that, the iPhone, was the most successful product of all
time.

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rburhum
The iPhone was not built with venture money. Your comparison does not hold at
all.

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new299
While I agree the situation was very different, arguably the iPhone was built
with venture money.

NeXT did receive venture funding (which obviously became the core os MacOS and
iOS). Fingerworks, was also a key acquisition. I can't find any information
about the funding Fingerworks received, but being a university spin out it
seems likely that they received at least seed funding.

~~~
rburhum
Oh geez, if you want to play the linear game, you can even trace the Android
development to the Roman empire.

To put the conversation back in a grounded and reasonable list of arguments,
let's start with the premise that technology != business.

So even if the tech that Magic Leap is creating is so great, by the time they
go to market, they will be competing with an ecosystem already in place. Apple
will have all the apps that have been built with their ARKit (not to mention
their App Store monetization strategy). Sony, FB/Oculus, HTC and MS are
already at the infancy of developing something serious there. If Magic Leap
came out with a product _today_ , they are already starting behind.

If we take in consideration price point, it even becomes a more challenging
scenario.

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sxates
You guys remember when Color raised $50m with no product and the valley went
ape and started screaming bubble?

Talk about quaint compared to today.

ML has a very serious risk of spending hundreds of millions of dollars over a
decade with no customer input building something that will land like Google
Glass or a Segway. Then what? Someone like Google has other products and can
retreat and regroup, but ML will lose whatever credibility they had and not be
likely to recover. It could be very ugly.

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kpierce
And wreck Florida's startup credibility.

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sidlls
Florida has startup credibility?

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deft
How is this possible? Unless they invented literal world changing technology
(they haven't) how are they able to do this? No product, no public demos, what
exactly have they done?

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bobsil1
No revenues is exactly why it's possible.

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taneq
It's a perfect play!

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bobsil1
This guy funds.

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strangeloops85
I cannot think of a similar trajectory for a company that is today a large
platform. The big companies of our, and previous, eras began with small
products, targeting markets and grew organically and gradually. Stealth had a
purpose, but there was a technology serving a market at a relatively early
point. Even in semiconductors. There's no precedent for this degree of
fundraising, lack of product release and opacity. I can't think of reasons
that this is justified when product/market fit is so unproven.

Even if the experience is fantastic, the product flawless, the content
engaging -- none of that means that there'll be product/market fit. Iterations
will likely be needed. I'll be delighted if it's a big success, and hey it's
not my money. But, the systemic signaling (and actual) risk posed by a
potential Magic Leap failure on the larger AR/VR community is being sorely
underestimated by everyone. And that is worrisome.

~~~
QAPereo
By the same token, some of the great failures, frauds, and cons in history
_did_ look a lot like this.

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jdavis703
Based on the job listings they've had for the past few months I think they're
actually building a computing platform. I expect the first iteration to not be
as visually immersive as their old homepage lead people to believe (think more
like a traditional heads up display, less like a Black Mirror-style AR
device), but none-the-less they have the ability to reimagine and transform
computing in the way that the original iPhone did. That said there's a large
risk they're lost in the dustbin of technology if they can't convince
consumers to wear a computer on their face. But potentially getting in on the
next iPhone for only a billion dollars is a bet a lot are willing to make.

~~~
TrainedMonkey
Yup, pretty sure it is AR headset with a 1-1 virtual earth.

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mfrisbie
[https://alwaystrend.in/articles/magic-leap-
raises-80-billion...](https://alwaystrend.in/articles/magic-leap-
raises-80-billion-to-ramp-up-production-of-enticing-tease-videos)

~~~
dannylandau
Funny!

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codeulike
I hear they've found a way to make dollar signs appear in people's eyes, like
in cartoons.

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kelvin0
Well, if a company can sell an explosive detector to states and make a ton of
money out of a tin can with an antenna attached, why not Magic Leap? Always
remember the power of the :ADE651

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651)

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dguaraglia
For reference, by the time Uber had raised this kind of money, they already
had >$1bn in revenue. How they can keep this thing going on is beyond my
comprehension.

Either the technology is _so_ mind-blowing that we'll all be compelled to use
it the moment we see it (in a year? two? a decade? what kind of runway are
they building with this money?), or this will be the next Theranos.

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coldcode
Why? A company with no products that no one has really seen building something
people are living without, sure its worth another Billion. Maybe we will all
die in a nuclear holocaust and then it won't matter. In meantime you can have
nice parties.

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shafyy
Wow, I didn't know that the company was launched in 2010. 7 years and not a
public product? I don't know man. I really hope that it's not just vaporware,
would be awesome if they could make something cool.

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maxxxxx
Most likely this will end like Color or Cuil who had great PR until they
actually got to market and immediately faded away. I don't think in computing
you can build anything for 7 years without market input.

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abritinthebay
Cuil had great PR? When?

Color had marketing hype but as far as I could tell _no-one_ outside of VC
circles took it seriously.

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maxxxxx
I remember Cuil when it launched. Ex-Google people starting a next-gen engine.
They had the right credentials and everything.

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abritinthebay
Yeah, I remember it too - it was a joke that had quite possibly the most awful
name in the Web 2.0 era (and that was a high bar).

Both Cuil and Color are great examples of people utterly bamboozling VCs into
dumping money into an _incredibly_ dumb idea... but I don't know of any good
PR that was related to them outside of that (I mean, ffs, Cuil won a "most
success startup" award based on _it 's fundraising_. How inane is that?)

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beambot
The cynical part of me: it's just vaporware... until it isn't.

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alexasmyths
I think they have something that works, it's just difficult to make it into a
product etc..

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beambot
It doesn't "work" until it's in user hands.

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niyogi
I don't get it.

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trhway
>This substantial amount of funding has placed Magic Leap firmly in the public
eye

pun intended?

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thebiglebrewski
Lmfao I just don't understand it. Who is going to buy into this with, as
another commenter said, "No product, no public demos, what exactly have they
done?" Especially after Juicero and everything else that's been dumb lately?

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rconti
To be fair, Juicero had the exact opposite problem.

