IP Group's WaveOptics completes £20m fundraising

(Sharecast News) - IP Group's portfolio company WaveOptics, which designs and manufactures diffractive waveguides for use in Augmented Reality (AR) wearables, has completed a £20m fundraising.The round was led by Octopus Ventures and supported by existing shareholders including IP Group, Robert Bosch Venture Capital and Gobi Partners as well as new investors Goertek and Optimas Capital Partners.Following completion of the first tranche of the financing round, IP Group's direct undiluted beneficial stake of 19.9% in WaveOptics is valued at £15.2m, which represents a direct unrealised fair value gain to of £7.6m. IP Group committed £3.7m to the fundraising.Robert Bahns, partner of technology at IP Group, said: "WaveOptics is making excellent progress and we believe the company has the best solution both from a commercial and technical standpoint for providing the key component in AR devices. This is being demonstrated by the level of engagement with its key customers."The funds will be used to scale up WaveOptics' operations on a national and international basis, as it builds a large volume manufacturing supply chain to meet customer demand from the Asian and US markets.The business is also investing in its overseas infrastructure having recently opened offices in Los Angeles and Taipei, with plans to open a new office in Beijing in 2019.IP said the funding round represents the largest AR hardware fundraise in Europe this year."The company is in advanced discussions with potential new shareholders and strategic partners about a second stage investment," it said. Ip Group