Japanese start up Tonchidot<\/strong>, the company behind the very popular Augmented Reality browser Sekai Camera<\/strong>, has announced a new round of financing totaling $4 million. <\/p>\n\n
The funds were raised from DCM<\/strong> and existing investor ITOCHU Technology Ventures<\/strong>, and will be used to continue development of Tonchidot’s AR products.<\/p>\n This is one of the largest investments in the new mobile AR sector, and indicates that investors are starting to believe the long term value of the technology. Osuke Honda<\/strong>, a principal at DCM, said “We think augmented reality provides a really interesting user interface, and a place to combine social interaction, marketing and content creation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
\nAs with many mobile technologies, the consumers in Japan may prefer different uses than consumers in the West. As reported in Venture Beat<\/em>, Honda said that Tonchidot\u2019s technology could be used to stage games in the real world, and gave the example of having robots battle each other through your phone on a real physical location like a playing field!<\/p>\n