Lausanne-based light-field display startup CREAL raised a series CHF 6.5 million A+ financing round led by Swisscom Ventures and joined by existing investors Verve Ventures, DAA Capital Partners and Ariel Luedi. Verve Ventures contributed CHF 2.4 million.

This new funding will bring CREAL’s total funding CHF 13 million. It will extend CREAL’s capabilities to bring its light-field display technology from the current hardware-development-kit stage to the complete technology package for the next-generation Augmented Reality (AR) glasses.

Today’s AR hardware has a major flaw. It typically uses two flat-screen images to create a stereoscopic illusion of three-dimensional imagery while ignoring the natural need of our eyes to focus on the correct distance. This conflict is one of the causes of unpleasant and unhealthy eye-strain, and visual conflicts in AR. CREAL develops light-field display technology to solve this problem. CREAL’s light-field display projects genuinely three-dimensional hologram-like imagery that is entirely natural for human vision. Each eye can change focus between virtual objects in the image, just like it would do it in the real world. The technology will greatly improve the user experience and attractiveness of the next generation of AR devices.

“This funding allows us to make the last technology development step towards consumer-grade display for AR glasses that are destined to become our everyday tool in everything from cooking to neurosurgery,” says Tomas Sluka, the co-founder, and CEO of CREAL.

“CREAL has assembled a team with world-leading expertise in optics and electrical engineering for smart glass development. It has developed a light-field technology that outperforms the competition and enables superior user experience for VR and AR glasses,” says Susanne Schorsch, Verve Ventures’ Investment Manager responsible for the investment.

Read our interview with the world-renowned expert Prof. Touradj Ebrahimi about light-field technology.

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