Rony Abovitz

Rony Abovitz (born 1971 )[1] is an American entrepreneur. Abovitz founded MAKO Surgical Corp., a company manufacturing surgical robotic arm assistance platforms, in 2004. MAKO was acquired by Stryker Corporation in 2013 for $1.65B.[2]

Abovitz is the founder of the Mixed reality/Augmented Reality (MR/AR) company Magic Leap and is currently its CEO[3][4][5]. In October 2014, the startup raised over $540 million of venture funding from Google and other investors[6]. In March 7, 2018, Magic Leap raised $461 million in Series D funding from Axel Springer Digital Ventures and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which brought the total funding amount to $2.3 Billion.[7] Other investors include Alibaba Group, AT&T, JP Morgan Chase, Fidelity Management, Qualcomm Ventures, and Morgan Stanley.[8] In 2016, Forbes estimated that Magic Leap was worth $4.5 billion.[1]In October 2017, Magic Leap announced the partnership with online comic book publisher Madefire[9][10]. Magic Leap unveiled its first product, the Magic Leap One, on December 20th, 2017[11]. Magic Leap One was released to developers in 6 cities on August 8, 2018.[12]

Early life

Abovitz's father worked in the real estate industry and his mother was an artist[3].

Abovitz states he grew up playing Atari video games, and at the age of 8 he received his first computer which he says was an Apple Macintosh. [13]

After high school, Abovitz aimed to have a career as a scientist.[3]

He attended the University of Miami, where he eventually obtained a master's degree in biomedical engineering[14]. While attending university, he was also a cartoonist[13].

Career

In 2011, Abovitz founded a virtual reality company called Magic Leap, based in Florida. The company maintains offices in New Zealand, in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Mountain View, California.[13]

In 2017, Abovitz spoke at the Black Tech Week annual conference, where he shared some of his goals for the Magic Leap company.[3]

In February 2018, Abovitz spoke at Recode’s Code Media conference about the augmented reality technology his company was developing.[15].


References

  1. 1 2 Ewalt, David M. "Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-11-03.
  2. ↑ "Stryker Corp. completes acquisition of MAKO Surgical Corp". MLive.com. Retrieved 2018-06-07.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Berman, Nat (2017). "BusinessRony Abovitz: 10 Things You Didn't Know about Magic Leap's CEO". Moneyinc. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  4. ↑ Roose, Kevin (21 October 2014). "Google Just Invested Millions of Dollars in a Very Eccentric Man". New York Magazine. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  5. ↑ Lapowsky, Issie (24 February 2015). "Magic Leap CEO Teases 'Golden Tickets' for Its Augmented-Reality Device". Wired. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  6. ↑ David Gelles and Michael J. de la Merced (October 21, 2014). "Google Invests Heavily in Magic Leap's Effort to Blend Illusion and Reality". New York Times.
  7. ↑ https://phys.org/news/2018-03-million-magic.html. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ↑ https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/11/att-strikes-partnership-and-invests-in-magic-leap.html. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  9. ↑ "Magic Leap Unveils Mixed Reality Comics in Partnership with Madefire". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2017-10-10.
  10. ↑ "Magic Leap will get Madefire mixed reality comics on launch day | Today Latest News World". news.hgd.hu. Retrieved 2017-10-10.
  11. ↑ Eadicicco, Lisa. "Magic Leap's CEO On His 'Experiential Computer' That Blends Tech and Reality". Time. Retrieved 28 December 2017.
  12. ↑ https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17661758/magic-leap-one-mixed-reality-spatial-computing-headset-price-shipping-release-date. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  13. 1 2 3 Hempel, Jessi (21 April 2015). "The Man Behind the Hidden World of Magic Leap". Wired. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  14. ↑ D'Onfro, Jillian (1 January 2015). "Google's $500 Million Man: Meet The 'Weird' Guy Trying To Invent A New Computing Platform". Business Insider. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  15. ↑ Kafka, Peter (25 January 2018). "Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz is coming to Code Media". Recode. Retrieved 21 February 2018.


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