Apple has acquired Mira, a Los Angeles-based AR startup that makes headsets for other companies and the US military, according to a post from the CEO’s private Instagram account yesterday seen by The Verge and a person familiar with the matter. Apple confirmed the acquisition.
The news comes just one day after Apple unveiled the Vision Pro, a $3,499 mixed reality headset that the company has billed as a new “spatial” computing platform. It’s unclear how much Apple paid for Mira, which raised about $17 million in funding to date. Jony Ive, Apple’s former design chief, was an advisor to the startup at one point, according to two former employees who requested anonymity to speak without the company’s permission.
“Today I want to congratulate Mira Reality, a little over 4-year-old startup. Mira has seen their AR headset designed into a major theme park attraction at Universal Studios Japan. The theme park opened Nintendo World on Feb 4th, 2021, with a Mario Kart dark ride that uses Mira’s AR Headset to mix virtual images with video screens and sets within the rest of the attraction.”
The company has been keeping a pretty low profile since it publicly launched in 2017, but they’re finally ready to give some updates.
Mira now tells TechCrunch that they’ve raised about $10 million worth of funding over a few top-ups, which the team is collectively deeming as a seed extension round. Sequoia and SF-based Happiness Ventures led these financings, of which the startup did not break out the specific terms. The team has now raised just under $13 million to date. Mira has used this cash to refocus its business and refine its hardware.
This is a little overview of what we’re building at Mira, illustrating the different touch-points our hardware and software solutions will empower the industrial workforce.
I currently focus on making sure our software products look and feel amazing across AR, web, and native mobile/web devices — which heavily involves all stages of the design lifecycle including UI, UX, and design research.