Japan's Colopl VR Fund leads $11m round for VR specialist

According to a statement, the deal also featured Samsung Venture Investment and 2020, a technology-focused VC fund managed by Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry. The capital will be used to reinforce a mass production push later this year, including a rollout into more than 7,500 internet cafes across Korea and Japan.

The funding will also underpin acquisition and R&D efforts aimed at VR content creation featuring eye-tracking technology. Colopl is expected to make complementary investments in technologies related to Fove's head-mounted display.

"This will help us achieve our goal of creating a more pleasing VR experience that will have a lasting impact on the growing number of users interested in eye-tracking technology," said Fove co-founder and CEO Yuka Kojima.

Fove claims its equipment is the world's first to integrate eye-tracking technology, orientation sensing, and head position tracking features. This is believed to enable users to experience high precision control and a more immersive, natural interaction with virtual characters.

Colopl VR Fund has a corpus of $50 million and focuses on VR's potential to become a new experiential platform for personal computers, the internet and smart phones. The fund's parent company, Colopl, has established a subsidiary that specializes in 360-degree video.

Other recent investments in this space have included a Series A round for Chinese game developer Time of Virtual Reality and a $35 million investment led by CITIC Capital in VR headset manufacturer Baofeng Mojing.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Technology
• Expansion
• Samsung Venture Investment
• Japan
• South Korea