Accenture Ventures Makes Strategic Investment In Holographic Display Maker Looking Glass

February 10, 2023 by Dave Haynes

The huge professional service/consulting company Accenture has made what it describes as a strategic investment through its Accenture Ventures wing in the holographic displays developed and marketed by Brooklyn-based Looking Glass Factory.

Accenture says tech like the Looking Glass displays – which have some depth and change what viewers see based on angle – “offers the opportunity to connect 3D digital experiences in the metaverse to the physical world.”

Accenture already has a Looking Glass 65″ at its Accenture Labs in San Francisco.

“Looking Glass’ 3D technology can be deployed in physical environments along with paired metaverse experiences to create deeper, more immersive interactions between brands and their customers,” says David Treat, senior managing director and global lead of Accenture’s Metaverse Continuum business group. “We believe this technology has the potential to play a valuable role in metaverse content creation and across enterprise applications that bridge the physical and digital worlds, including retail marketing and holographic communications.”

“With our patented software and hardware platform that includes our Looking Glass Portrait display and the larger format Looking Glass 32″ and 65″, Looking Glass holograms are poised to drive the seismic shift from 2D to 3D,” says Shawn Frayne, co-founder and CEO of Looking Glass. “We believe this shift will be bigger than that from radio to TV, or the shift from black and white to color. The hologram era has truly begun and joining Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight initiative will help us drive increased enterprise adoption of the powerful brand experiences and connections that Looking Glass will deliver.”

PR adds:

Looking Glass is the latest company to join Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, an engagement and investment program focused on investing in companies that create or apply disruptive enterprise technologies. In addition to funding, Project Spotlight connects emerging technology startups with the Global 2000 to fill strategic innovation gaps and offers extensive access to Accenture’s domain expertise and enterprise clients, helping startups harness human creativity and deliver on the promise of their technology.
 
“As more companies establish and expand their metaverse presence, they’re looking for ways to bring immersive metaverse experiences to their customers in the physical world, and we believe Looking Glass’ holographic platform can enable them do that,” says Tom Lounibos, managing director, Accenture Ventures. “We look forward to introducing our clients and ecosystem partners to the Looking Glass holographic software and hardware platform and working together to create new content, along with dynamic, customized 3D user experiences and interactions.”
 
Terms of the investment were not disclosed, so my first instinct was to ignore this – as the investment could be a $10,000 grant or a $10 million infusion of growth capital. In other words, is this about who invested (look, we’re backed by Accenture!) or real growth funding and resources from Accenture?

However, Accenture is huge and, banging around its Ventures section, I see 30+ companies that have received funding support. So it’s worth noting, whatever the dollar amount put in. It’s also pretty clear Accenture does the “investment terms were not disclosed” thing with its other deals. It’s an NYSE-listed company, so maybe at some point the number has to be filed and published, but I’ll leave that to someone who likes forensic accounting.

Leave a comment