Wayray, a startup with Russian origins which has developed holographic AR displays for cars, has attracted $80 million in a Series C round led by Porsche and China Merchants Capital, a major Chinese investment firm.
The other investors are Hyundai Motor, Alibaba Group, JVCKENWOOD and a consortium of sovereign funds. These include the Russia-Japan Investment Fund, established last year, alongside the Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Bahrein funds.
Now headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, WayRay offers “a virtual world around the car that moves and continuously changes in sync with the route and the driver’s preferences.”
The technology offers wide viewing angles while requiring less space for hardware and control systems, the company says. The solutions may be “customized for both drivers and passengers, conventional vehicles and self-driving cars, consumers (aftermarket) and businesses (OEMs).”
The new funding will be used to “bolster the company’s focus on R&D, industrialization and team expansion to become a supplier of holographic AR solutions for car manufacturers,” according to WayRay’s press release.
Under plans, an affiliate with a pilot production line will be set up in Germany. The startup will also seek to diversify the application of its AR technology across different sectors — “from transportation to smart glass in the smart home business and construction industry.”
The startup, which has raised more than $100 million since its inception in 2012, aims to “become a unicorn by the end of 2019.”
Prime minister praise and discrete investors
WayRay’s latest round, in March 2017, involved Alibaba Group and other undisclosed investors, bringing $18 million in total to the startup.
An even earlier round took place in November 2015 with Sistema, a Russian conglomerate, and Tsertum Invest, a discrete Russian investment and construction firm, putting an undisclosed amount in the company.
The startup started drawing attention in 2013, when it won third prize at an important Russian startup contest.
That same year, the startup was praised by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Alexey Navalny, a fierce opponent of the Russian regime, saw in Medvedev a hidden investor in the company via Tsertum Invest, which the fund has denied.
