Magic Leap Is Raising Another Big Funding Round

Janko Roettgers
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Augmented reality startup Magic Leap is raising even more money. The company is currently in the process of raising its Series E round of funding, a spokesperson told Variety on Monday. Magic Leap previously raised around $2.6 billion, including $280 million from NTT Docomo in April.

“Magic Leap is in the midst of a significant financing round, which will become our series E when complete,” the company’s spokesperson said via email. “We have already closed a major portion of this round, some as equity and some as convertible debt that will become equity when the round is complete. The participants in this round include existing investors, new investors, and strategic partners.”

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First signs of Magic Leap returning to existing investors for yet another cash infusion surfaced in August, when the company assigned its patents to JPMorgan Chase as collateral.

Details about that transfer surfaced on Hacker News over the weekend, with some commenters suggesting that it may be an indicator for financial struggles. However, this kind of convertible debt financing is not completely out of the ordinary for capital-intensive companies, and intellectual property is frequently being used as collateral to secure debt funding.

The new funding round is expected to close in the coming months. There is no word yet on which investors, other than JPMorgan Chase, are going to be part of the new round. The bank was also part of Magic Leap’s Series D. Other previous investors in the company include Alibaba, Google, AT&T and Warner Bros.

Magic Leap released its first developer hardware in 2018, and has been somewhat quiet this year. However, the company’s spokesperson insisted that the company is still growing, and getting ready to launch future products.

“Magic Leap has been expanding internationally and now has distribution in the U.S. and Asia with additional regions to follow soon,” she said. “In addition to growing market share, we are currently productizing our 2nd generation device and the Magicverse, and are growing our content and developer ecosystems.”

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