Construction tech augmented reality start-up XYZ Reality has closed a £20 million series A funding round as the company seeks to grow in markets outside Europe and further develop its products.
The company is preparing for a launch in the US, and plans further investment in strengthening research and development, while also adding to its London team in technology, manufacturing, sales and marketing roles.
The funding round was led by Octopus Ventures, with participation from existing investors Adara Ventures, Amadeus Capital Partners, Hoxton Ventures and J Coffey Construction. New investment also came from Activum SG, Optimas Capital and Tishman Speyer.
Founded by Irish born David Mitchell, XYZ Reality has developed an engineering-grade augmented reality solution, HoloSite, which uses holograms on construction sites to enable construction teams to view and build accurately from 3D design models.
The system uses a cloud platform, AR headset and propriety software that can be implement into current construction practices.The technology has already been used on projects worth more than £1.5b billion to date,including data centres, pharmaceutical facilities and airports.
The company is aiming to tap into a market that sees £12 billion spent every year in the UK alone fixing errors in the building process, which have an impact on deadlines and budgets.
XYZ Reality is also planning to use the funding to develop its second generation headset.
Mr Mitchell said the development of the augmented reality solution was just the beginning of the company’s journey. “The next phase is assisted reality, where our spatial computing technology will have the intelligence to automatically detect and report issues in the field,” he said. “And ultimately, the goal is builders building from holograms. Our vision of developing world changing products aligns with Octopus Ventures’ mission of investing in companies that are powering the next industrial revolution. We look forward to building history.”
Lead investor Octopus Ventures has investmenta in health, fintech, consumer, B2B software, and deep tech, incuding the recently acquired augmented reality company WaveOptics.
"We've always invested in entrepreneurs leading industry change and XYZ is doing just that. It's solving a massive problem that costs the construction industry billions every year, using its Engineering-Grade Augmented Reality solution to spearhead a shift in the sector's approach," Rebecca Hunt, early-stage investor at Octopus Ventures. "The founding team of David, Umar and Murray have deep domain and technical expertise, which we believe makes XYZ uniquely placed to drive this transformation."
