Oculus Rift VR headset secures R770-million funding

Oculus Rift has secured a further US$75-million (±R770-million) funding for its virtual reality headset endeavors from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, who has previously identified hot tickets Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Skype and GitHub.

“With this new funding, we’ll be investing heavily in future R&D, expanding our hardware manufacturing and distribution operations, developing the world’s premier VR platform, and recruiting more competitively than ever before. It also means we’re designing and publishing more incredible VR content — the types of games, applications and experiences that will define the platform,” the Oculus team writes on their blog.

The California-based Oculus Rift team now boasts nearly 70 engineers, game developers, designers, and scientists – and continues to hire.

One of the most recent additions to the team was John Carmack of id Software fame, who has backed the project from the beginning and joins on to challenge himself to greater things.

Currently the company is planning a consumer version of the device with a 7-inch 1920 x 1080 screen with passive 3D vision. It’s possible that the Rift will be compatible with Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology.

The Oculus Rift may be the turning point for virtual reality technology to finally take hold in the consumer space.