August 03, 2014 8:00 AM
By Crain's Detroit Business
When not being used to watch something in high-def 3D, Avegant headsets can be used as headphones
CNN has named a 3-D headset called the Glyph, made by Ann Arbor-based Avegant Corp., as one of the 10 hottest gadgets or devices for 2014.The company has been on a roll, as Crain's pointed out in a profile in April, two months before Avegant closed on a venture capital round of $4 million.In January, its prototype headset was one of just 40 out of thousands of products on display to win an Editor's Choice Award at the influential Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.On Jan. 22, Avegant launched a Kickstarter campaign, which went far beyond anything company officials were hoping for. They had a target of $750,000, which was hit after just 3 hours and 56 minutes and eventually surpassed $1.5 million.Avegant's $499 headsets won't be available until at least the end of the year. The headsets will be for video gamers, as well as for watching any video source on mobile devices, including streaming video from Netflix.Local venture capitalists think Avegant could be sold for big bucks before it sells its first headset, in large part because of the $2 billion sale to Facebook in March of a competitor, Oculus VR Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based maker of virtual-reality goggles for video gamers.If so, one of those to profit will be the Detroit-based First Step Fund, which invested $50,000 in Avegant last year, well before it got on its roll.
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