6D.ai, a US-based augmented reality (AR) engine developer spun out from University of Oxford, has secured an unspecified amount of seed funding in a round featuring university venture fund Oxford Sciences Innovation.
Venture capital firm General Catalyst led the round, which also featured Amit Mahajan from Presence Capital, Ryan Walsh from Floodgate, Ori Inbar from Super Ventures, Jacob Mullins from Shasta Ventures, Greg Castle, founder and general partner of Anorak Ventures, as well as Jeff Seibert, Wayne Chang, Robert del Naja, Joe Kraus, and other, unnamed investors.
Founded in November 2017 and initially called 6Degrees, 6D.ai has commenced limited beta testing on an AR engine that compiles 3D, crowd-sourced maps of real-world locations from standard mobile phone cameras.
The engine is intended to support interactions from multiple users simultaneously, with digital objects that behave as though they reside in the physical surroundings.
6D.ai was co-founded by Matt Miesnieks and Victor Prisacariu out of the AR-focused Active Vision Group at Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science. The company is University of Oxford’s 150th spinout and the institution’s first to be founded in the US.
The funding will help 6D.ai drive recruitment as it fills managerial positions in AR, computer vision and infrastructure. Niko Bonatsos, managing director of General Catalyst, will join the board of directors.
Miesnieks, now chief executive of 6D.ai, said: “AR represents the ultimate display. It is the closest we can get to blurring the perceived distinction between digital and physical objects.
“The ability for AR to be the interface to all other new technical breakthroughs, to literally and metaphorically change how we see the world and each other, is profound.”
