Meta was founded by Meron Gribetz while he was a student at
Columbia University. In 2013, Meta launched a crowd-funded
Kickstarter campaign that raised $194,444. Also in 2013, Meta was accepted into the
Y Combinator's seed accelerator program.
Steve Mann became the company's chief scientist and Steven Feiner became an adviser. In 2014, founder Gribetz was awarded the "30 Under 30 award" in the technology category by
Forbes and Meta won best heads-up display award for the Meta Pro at the
Consumer Electronics Show. Meta presented the Meta 1 Developer Kit with a live medical demo at 2014's TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco. In September 2014, Meta began to ship its Meta 1 Developer Kit. In 2015, Meta raised a $23 million
Series-A round from
Horizons Ventures,
Tim Draper, BOE Optoelectronics,
Garry Tan and
Alexis Ohanian of Y Combinator, Danhua Capital, Commodore Partners, and Vegas Tech Fund. In 2016, Meta unveiled its second-generation product at a
TED conference. The company received another $50M in venture-capital funds from
Lenovo,
Tencent, Banyan Capital, Comcast Ventures, and GQY. In March 2016, it announced the launch of the Meta 2 at the $949 to compete with the
Microsoft HoloLens, which retailed for $3000. However, the Meta 2 would be a tethered and would require an external PC whereas the Hololens was a standalone product. In 2018, Meta furloughed two-thirds of its one hundred employees after it failed to secure another round of venture capital funding. with Jay Wright, who was previously president and general manager of
Qualcomm's augmented reality division, Vuforia, chosen as CEO. == See also ==