Zappar Goes from $84,000 Kickstarter to $3.75 Million Series A Funding for Mobile AR

In December of last year, UK-based Zappar successfully raise $84,356 for their ZapBox mixed reality headset—over $50,000 more than their goal. Well, they just blew that sum out of the water when they announced this morning that they've closed a Series A round of funding with $3.75 million.

ZapWorks, Zappar's primary product, is a development environment for using 3D models with animation and image tracking tools to create many types of experiences. The output of that development process is designed for augmented, mixed, and virtual reality uses on mobile devices and head-mounted displays.

In a press release published early this morning, the CEO of Zappar, Caspar Thykier, talked about their drive and goals.

Zappar's mission is to democratize augmented reality. AR represents an exciting future for consumer engagement connecting devices to the world around us. With this round our established institutional and trade investors lend further credence to this future as we continue towards AR delivering a digital discovery channel through mobile devices and head-mounted displays. This investment will help us further develop ZapWorks: our market leading AR, VR and now Mixed Reality content creation service that will power the future of consumer interaction and engagement for the next generation of digital developers.

This round of funding, led by Hargreave Hale, You & Mr. Jones, and iDreamSky, will fund a few various elements of Zappar's business, but a large focus will go to expanding the brand as well as increasing development of the ZapWorks platform. They will also expand to grow the software as a service (SaaS) sales team, marketing department, and research and development.

The ZapBox, the augmented reality version of Google Cardboard, uses an external camera to project the outside view of the user to the phone being used. This is designed to simulate an augmented reality experience far less expensive than any of the standalone AR devices out on the market at the moment.

Do you think that the Google Cardboard model is one that can popularize AR/MR? Let us know in the comments below.

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Cover image via Zappar