Optics

BASF invests $4.4M in augmented reality startup RE'FLEKT

June 27, 2018

With the new funding, RE'FLEKT will continue its strong growth and further invest in its team and products.

Augmented reality (AR) will have an important role in industrial applications such as on-site equipment repair and educational instruction.

BASF Venture Capital has invested in RE'FLEKT (Munich, Germany and San Francisco, CA), an augmented reality (AR) startup that provides enterprise customers content creation and remote expert solutions. BASF Venture Capital's opening investment of $4.4 million dollars follows Bosch's investment in the company in 2015."The investments from two of the world's largest industrial companies validate our leading position in the Augmented Reality market. With the new funding, we will continue our strong growth and further invest in our team and products," says RE'FLEKT CEO and founder Wolfgang Stelzle.

"Digital technologies are a high priority at BASF. We see significant benefits in using Augmented Reality for a variety of key simulation, communication, and digital learning use cases, especially related to operations and industrial processes," says Markus Solibieda, managing director of BASF Venture Capital. "Our partnership with RE'FLEKT further establishes value for our customers, who will be able to use Augmented Reality to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing and industrial processes."

RE'FLEKT has been developing its enterprise augmented and mixed reality ecosystem since the company was founded in 2012. Consisting of a multi award-winning content creation platform and a remote expert solution for maintenance, training and operations, the RE'FLEKT ecosystem intelligently projects step-by-step instructions directly onto complex machines and systems using AR. "The RE'FLEKT platform helps machine operators and maintenance personnel eliminate mistakes and significantly in-crease uptime," says Stelzle.

Industrial companies use the RE'FLEKT Ecosystem to transform their existing CAD drawings and data from traditional technical documentation into interactive AR applications for mobile devices and smart glasses. These applications can be used regardless of location to provide interactive user support and standardize learning and education for complex machinery and processes.

RE'FLEKT says the 2020 global market potential for AR applications is estimated at more than $100 billion dollars. Market trends such as knowledge society, connectivity, and globalization are just a few of key factors that expected to drive the opportunity for enterprise AR solutions that improve communication and knowledge transfer.

SOURCE: RE'FLEKT; https://www.re-flekt.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Press-Release_REFLEKT_BASF_EN.pdf

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.