VCs give failed AR startup Meta a do-over with new CEO, corporate entity
Summary
AR startup Meta’s original investors might have been screwed by the company’s collapse and fire sale, but a pair of VC firms are giving the brand another shot with a new corporate entity and CEO that the new backers hope will lead to a less abysmal outcome. Ultimately, the company’s assets were sold months ago — for “less than the bank was owed” — to a mystery buyer that we now know was Olive Tree Ventures . One would imagine a deal like this comes from a specialized investor who finds dead startups, puts a new coat of paint on their IP and attempts to revive old relationships, but Olive Tree is just an early-stage VC firm. Our belief was so strong that we did a somewhat non-traditional VC deal to acquire the assets, start a new company and find a new CEO with a vision and focus we believed in,” said Olive Tree Ventures GP Mayer Gniwisch in a statement. Wright was a co-founder of Vuforia, which really helped blaze a lot of trails in the AR space, and he has led the product at PTC since it was acquired in 2015.