HaptX: $12 Million In Funding And Partnership With Advanced Input Systems

By Dan Anderson ● Dec 20, 2019
  • HaptX, a leading provider of realistic haptic technology, announced it raised $12 million in Series A funding and signed a strategic partnership with Advanced Input Systems

HaptX — a leading provider of realistic haptic technology — announced it raised $12 million in Series A funding and signed a strategic partnership with Advanced Input Systems.

This round of funding will be used for the production of the next generation of HaptX Gloves, the world’s most realistic haptic gloves for virtual reality and robotics.

“Over the past year, we’ve had dozens of world-class companies successfully pilot our HaptX Gloves Development Kit,” said Jake Rubin, Founder and CEO of HaptX. “With this foundational strategic partnership and fresh capital, we’re well positioned to scale up production to meet rapidly growing demand.”

In the past 40 years, Advanced Input Systems has delivered engineering and manufacturing expertise in innovative Human-Machine Interface (HMI) products for companies worldwide, enabling intuitive Human-Machine experiences in the medical, industrial, commercial, military and gaming sectors. And the comprehensive partnership between HaptX and Advanced Input Systems includes product development, manufacturing, and go-to-market collaboration.

“HaptX and Advanced Input Systems are overcoming a long-standing technology gap of seamlessly connecting the physical world to the virtual world,” added Eric Ballew, President of Advanced Input Systems. “The ability of the HaptX solution to provide realistic touch feedback in wearable haptic devices bridges this gap, accelerating the adoption of VR products in enterprise applications.”

Including the $12 million Series A round of funding, the company has raised a total of $19 million. This round of funding included participation from existing investors NetEase and Amit Kapur of Dawn Patrol Ventures joined by new investors Mason Avenue Investments Taylor Frigon Capital Partners, Upheaval Investments, Votiv Capital, Keiretsu Forum, and Keiretsu Capital.

The company’s enterprise customers are using HaptX Gloves in VR design, training, and robotics. HaptX also announced a collaboration with Nissan that brought touch to the automaker’s virtual vehicle prototypes earlier this year.

Fundamental Surgery integrated HaptX Gloves into its VR medical training platform. And HaptX unveiled a first-of-its-kind haptic telerobot developed with All Nippon Airways, Tangible Research, and Shadow Robot Company. Plus in a widely publicized demo, Jeff Bezos described the system as “really impressive” and remarked that “the tactile feedback is tremendous.”