INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
While Apple and Microsoft strain to sell augmented reality as the next major computing platform, many of the startups aiming to beat them to
the punch are crashing and burning.Daqri, which built enterprise-grade AR headsets, has shuttered its HQ, laid off many of its employees and
is selling off assets ahead of a shutdown, former employees and sources close to the company tell TechCrunch.In an email obtained by
TechCrunch, the nearly 10-year-old company told its customers that it was pursuing an asset sale and was shutting down its cloud and
smart-glasses hardware platforms by the end of September.“I think the large majority of people who worked [at Daqri] are sad to see it
closing down,” a former employee told TechCrunch
“[I] wish the end result was different.”The company’s 18,000+ square foot Los Angeles headquarters (above) is currently listed as
“available” by real estate firm Newmark Knight Frank
The company’s Sunnyvale offices appear to have been shuttered sometime prior to 2019.Daqri’s shutdown is only the latest among heavily
funded augmented reality startups seeking to court enterprise customers.Earlier this year, Osterhout Design Group unloaded its AR glasses
patents after acquisition talks with Magic Leap, Facebook and others stalled
Meta, an AR headset startup that raised $73 million from VCs including Tencent, also sold its assets earlier this year after the company ran
out of cash.Daqri faced substantial challenges from competing headset makers, including Magic Leap and Microsoft, who were backed by more
expansive war chests and institutional partnerships
While the headset company struggled to compete for enterprise customers, Daqri benefitted from investor excitement surrounding the broader
That is, until the investment climate for AR startups cooled.Daqri was, at one point, speaking with a large private-equity firm about
financing ahead of a potential IPO, but as the technical realities facing other AR companies came to light, the firm backed out and the deal
crumbled, we are told.As of mid-2017, a Wall Street Journal report detailed that Daqri had raised $275 million in funding
You won’t find many details on the sources of that funding, other than references to Tarsadia Investments, a private-equity firm in Los
Angeles that took part in the company’s sole disclosed funding round
We’re told Tarsadia had taken controlling ownership of the firm after subsequent investments.In early 2016, Daqri acquired Two Trees
Photonics, a small UK startup that was building holographic display technologies for automotive customers
The UK division soon comprised a substantial portion of the entire company’s revenues, sources tell us. By early 2018, the division was
spun out from Daqri as a separate company called Envisics, leaving the Daqri team to focus wholly on bringing augmented reality to
enterprise customers.The remaining head-worn AR division failed to gain momentum after prolonged setbacks in adoption of its AR smart
glasses, including difficulties in training workers to use the futuristic hardware, a source told TechCrunch.All the while, the company’s
leadership put on a brave face as the startup sputtered. In an interview this year with Cornell Enterprise Magazine, Daqri CEO Roy Ashok
told the publication that the startup was forecasting shipments of “tens of thousands” of pairs of its AR glasses in 2020.Daqri, its
founder and several executives did not respond to requests for comment.
