While virtual reality creates the illusion of being immersed in a new world, it doesn’t actually feel like you’re somewhere else. In fact, it doesn’t feel like anything at all.
That’s because VR only appeals to your sense of sight and sound. But one Seattle-based startup wants to add another dimension to VR by integrating the sensation of touch.
HaptX is working on realistic haptic technology for robotics and VR. On Thursday, the company announced its $12 million Series A, which it’ll use to develop its next generation of HaptX Gloves.
HaptX’s VR gloves are designed to give a tactile response when the user interacts with an object in virtual reality. In a demo, HaptX recruited Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to test out the gloves, where he commented that “the tactile feedback is tremendous.”
The company first unveiled its gloves in 2017. Since then, the company has been working on ways to refine the gloves and bring them to market.
“Over the past year, we’ve had dozens of world-class companies successfully pilot our HaptX Gloves Development Kit,” Jake Rubin, founder and CEO of HaptX, said in a statement. “With this foundational strategic partnership and fresh capital, we’re well positioned to scale up production to meet rapidly growing demand.”
Along with its Series A, HaptX also announced that it’s partnered with Advanced Input Systems to work on the HaptX Gloves. Advanced Input Systems has experience engineering and manufacturing human-machine interface products for companies across a range of industries. This partnership includes product development, manufacturing and go-to-market collaboration.
