It might well be the holiday season but that doesn’t mean there still isn’t plenty of comings and goings within the businesses that make up the immersive technologies industry – as readers of VRFocus‘ regular Sunday feature The VR Job Hub will attest, things certainly haven’t slowed down in any way.
One such firm making moves is WaveOptics. The UK based company that a UK start-up that specialises in the building waveguide-based optics – using electromagnetic waves in the optical spectrum, essentially hologram technology and the use of photonic crystals – for augmented reality (AR) hardware. They’ve just made a significant change by bringing on David Hayes as their new CEO.
Hayes has a vast array of experience following a twenty year career that has covered leading teams across research, product development and manufacturing of new hardware and recently had a significant role at AR smart helmet and smart glasses producers DAQRI. Prior to that Hayes was involved in other companies sympathetic to WaveOptics’ areas of interest, particular in Hayes’ previous work on head-up displays (HUDs).
The move to bring on Hayes marks the beginning of a new growth phase for the firm and follows on from news VRFocus covered earlier this year, as WaveOptics announced back in July that they had secured a a second round of investment funding for its AR display technology. The company netting an additional £12 million (GBP) the equivalent of $15.5 million (USD). The funds being used to secure the future releases of WaveOptics’ AR end-user products, which are scheduled to hit the market by 2019 for a price of under $600 (USD).
Speaking at the time, the chairman of WaveOptics, Martin Harriman, had some bold words for the company’s future:
“WaveOptics is reinventing the AR market by developing a series of new AR display tech that enables a wider field of view and brighter full colour images — a unique combination in today’s market. This funding round further accelerates development of our industry-leading technologies and enables us to launch programs in new markets and territories. We are excited about the team of investors we have on board who share our vision.”
It’s a vision shared by Hayes, as he explained: “AR is one of the most exciting growth markets today, with the technology set to potentially bring in $83 billion by 2021. However, commercialisation of the market has been very slow to date. WaveOptics’ patented technology is the core ingredient required to unlock mass market adoption of AR. Its diffractive waveguides ensure high-performance, high field of view see-through displays, providing for the first time, scalability for real world applications across all leading market segments- enterprise, prosumer, and consumer. I couldn’t be more excited to join the bold and talented team at WaveOptics and be a part of this disruptive advancement of optics, which will change the face of AR as we know it.”
VRFocus will be bringing you more industry new from across the immersive technology spectrum very soon.