VR Device Manufacturer Pimax Secures C1 Round of Financing Worth $28M

Pimax, a well-known VR hardware manufacturer in China, recently completed a C1 round of financing valued at 200 million yuan ($28 million), led by Tuanmu Capital, followed by Qingdao Haifa State-owned Capital Investment and Operation Group, Hoilon Investment and other institutions, 36Kr reported.

Founded in 2015, Pimax has been focusing on high-definition image quality and large field angle displays. In 2016, the company released its first product, the Pimax 4K, focusing on 4K displays, while most VR products only supported 1K/2K at that time. In 2017, Pimax released an 8K version, which supported a 200-degree visual field display and was the world’s first PC VR product supporting an 8K display.

In October 2022, the company released its Pimax Crystal, which supports PC VR and an all-in-one mode in addition to a pixels per degree of 42. It was also the first product in the world to support the ability to replace lenses. Weng Zhibin, firm founder and chairman, said that the research and development of products supporting 12K display is progressing and is expected to be released by the end of 2023.

Not only does Pimax seek innovation in image quality display and large field angles, but the company is also trying to attain breakthroughs in its product form and market positioning. At the end of last year, Pimax released Portal, the core of which is an Android game console equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 platform. The screen and handle of the equipment can be disassembled and put into a VR head display and VR handle respectively.

Weng said that the company has gained a firm foothold in overseas markets, and its marketing and service network covers all 48 developed economies. After this financing, Pimax will gradually focus on expanding enterprise orders and the Chinese market as a whole in the future.

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Although the CCS Insight, a research company, shows that the global shipments of VR devices and AR devices decreased by more than 12% year-on-year to 9.6 million units in 2022, with Sony’s recent successful release of the PSVR2 and Apple’s anticipated release of its own VR glasses, the industry may usher in a new wave of development.

In China, the government has set goals for the future development of the VR and AR industries. In November 2022, the plan issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and five other national departments mentioned that the scale of the domestic VR industry will exceed 350 billion yuan in 2026, and the sales volume of VR terminals will exceed 25 million units.