NexTech AR, which develops an augmented reality (AR) advertising platform, has closed $1,161,780 in a private placement.
Private placement financing is an alternative to an IPO. It involves the sale of securities to a relatively small number of select investors, which typically includes wealthy accredited investors, large banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, and pension funds. Private placements are different from a public issuing, and do not need to be registered with a securities regulator.
“NexTech will be uniquely positioned to leverage our ARitize platform into retail, training, and entertainment.”
– NexTech CEO Evan Gappelberg
NexTech AR offers three verticals for AR development: Aritize For eCommerce, which launched in early 2019 and provides 3D product capture, 3D ads for Facebook and Google, and ‘try-it-on’ tech; Aritize University, which launched in June 2019 and allows educational institutions to turn 2D materials like PDFs into AR documents; and ARitize Hollywood Studios, which will launch in Q4 2019 and provides a proprietary entertainment venue for producing immersive content. Customers of its ecommerce solution include Walther Arms, Wright Brothers, Mr. Steak, and Budweiser.
The current funding will be used to expand Hollywood Studios, which is being led by Paul Duffy, inventor of the human hologram and president of NexTech AR. Its advisors include Barry Sandrew, a visual effects pioneer who invented digital colorization of black and white movies, and a process for converting 2D feature films to 3D. The NexTech engineering teams in Dallas and Austin are building out the software that will drive both AR content creation and its distribution.
On July 19, NexTech previously announced that it has closed a $1,589,500 management-led round, with NexTech CEO Evan Gappelberg investing $867,000. The company noted that closing the most recent private placement round brings its total capital raised in the past 30 days to $2,751,280.
“I am very pleased to be able to raise these additional funds as it allows NexTech to continue hiring additional talented, experienced and dedicated team members which will support us through this next phase of rapid growth,” said Gappelberg.
“Over the past 18 months we have built a powerful and broad array of AR capabilities which are all embedded in our omnichannel ARitize platform,” the CEO stated. “With this additional capital, NexTech will be uniquely positioned to leverage our ARitize platform into retail, training, and entertainment which will propel our rapid growth into 2020 and beyond.”
Since January 2019, NexTech has made several moves to grow its business, including signing a letter of intent to acquire an unnamed ecommerce company that NexTech claimed made $2.9 million CAD in revenue last year, as well as penning a deal with Cannvas MedTech to create learning kiosks for the digital cannabis education company.
Image source Unsplash. Photo by Alexander Dummer