UAVC has put capital into newly launched UA spinout EARDG Photonics, which integrates technology licensed from another spinout, TIPD, by the same co-founders.
EARDG Photonics, a US-based augmented reality glasses manufacturer spun out of University of Arizona (UA), has attracted an undisclosed sum from UAVenture Capital, the third-party VC firm focused on UA spinouts.
UAVC generally invests approximately $2m in businesses founded by UA faculty, students, alumni and affiliates. The investment is UAVC’s first from its second fund, announced in January 2019 with a target size of $100m.
Founded in January 2019, EARDG Photonics is working on wearable glasses that act as a display for augmented reality applications, which overlay computer-generated visual objects on real-world digital camera footage.
The investment will go towards creating glasses that offer the user the ability to simultaneously select between a normal and augmented field-of-view display.
EARDG Photonics was founded by Nasser Peyghambarian, professor of optical sciences and chair of photonics and lasers at UA’s James C Wyant College of Optical Sciences. Lloyd LaComb, a research professor at UA focused on optics for high-speed 3D holographic displays, has joined Peyghambarian as a director at the spinout.
The spinout integrates intellectual property licensed from TIPD, a UA spinout focused on 3D holographic displays that had also been co-founded by Peyghambarian and LaComb.
Amy Phillips, senior licensing manager for the College of Optical Sciences at UA’s tech transfer office Tech Launch Arizona, said: “The challenge was figuring out how to record the holograms. They had to develop a material that holds the image long enough to see, but then extinguishes it fast enough so you can rapidly create the next one.”
Doug Hockstad, assistant vice-president of Tech Launch Arizona, added: “The formation of EARDG, based on a combination of intellectual property from University of Arizona and earlier UA startup TIPD, is further evidence of the impact UA is having on the innovation ecosystem.
“We are very excited about this development and the potential impact of the technology.”
UAVC was launched in 2017 after Fletcher McCusker and Michael Deitch, co-founders of University of Arizona healthcare management software spinout SinfoníaRx, decided to reinvest funds procured from SinfoníaRx’s acquisition by medication software provider Tabula Rasa Healthcare.
