Varjo Technologies Oy, commonly referred to as Varjo, is a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

manufacturer of

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...

and

mixed reality Mixed reality (MR) is a term used to describe the merging of a real-world environment and a computer-generated one. Physical and virtual objects may co-exist in mixed reality environments and interact in real time. Mixed reality is largely synony ...

headsets. The company was founded in 2016 by former

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

executives. Varjo specializes in developing high-resolution devices that offer clarity comparable to the human eye. The company's first

head-mounted display A head-mounted display (HMD) is a display device, worn on the head or as part of a helmet (see Helmet-mounted display for aviation applications), that has a small display optic in front of one (monocular HMD) or each eye ( binocular HMD). An H ...

, Varjo VR-1, was launched in February 2019, and it was followed by Varjo VR-2 and VR-2 Pro models in October 2019. Varjo's first mixed reality device, Varjo XR-1 Developer Edition, was released to market in December 2019. The third-generation products, Varjo XR-3 and VR-3, were launched in December 2020. The fourth-generation consumer product Varjo Aero, was released to market in 2021. Varjo has raised over $100 million in

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

funding to date.

History

Varjo is founded by 4 people in 2016 at Helsinki, Southern Finland, Finland

Varjo founders

Niko Eiden, a co-founder and Board Member at Varjo. Also, a CEO of Pixieray, Computers and Electronics Manufacturing company that specializes in optics. He studied at Helsinki University of Technology. Klaus Melakari, co-founder and CTO. He has 20 years of experience in R&D, system design and technology. Previously Head of Computational Vision Systems at Microsoft Mobile, Distinguished architect at Nokia. Klaus holds a M.Sc. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at University of Oulu. Roope Rainisto, co-founder and Chief Design Officer. He has 15 years of experience in concepting and UX design. He is the Previous principal designer at Microsoft and Nokia, Head of computational vision UX at Microsoft Mobile. He is also an Inventor in 40+ patents. He has a M.Sc. in Technology, Information networks. Urho Konttori, founder of Varjo. He is a product innovator and program manager who has over 15 years of experience in designing, engineering and managing large-scale hardware and software projects at Microsoft and Nokia. He has been responsible for scouting, evaluating and defining high consumer value innovations such as novel cameras, see-through touch-screen fingerprint and VR headset technologies in more than a dozen mobile products, resulting in over 10 patents. He has also led the development of multiple operating systems, including the Linux-based Nokia N9 and N900 OS. Urho holds a B.Sc. degree in Algorithms.

Funding

Varjo has raised a total of $162.5M in funding over 9 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Sep 6, 2022, from a Series D round. Those who invested in Varjo are

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, Atomico, Mirabaud, Tesi, Lifeline Ventures, European Bank, Nordic Fund, etc. Varjo's customers include industry leaders such as

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, Siemens.

References

External links

Company website
Virtual reality headsets Augmented reality Wearable devices {{Finland-company-stub