Google venture arm backs startup aiming to bring mixed reality to any car windshield or plane cockpit

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Distance Technologies, a Finnish startup that aims to bring mixed-reality technology to any car windshield or plane cockpit, has raised 10 million euros ($11.1 million) of funding from GV, the venture capital arm of Alphabet and other investors.

Distance raised the cash injection in a seed round led by GV, with existing investors FOV Ventures and Maki.vc also stumping up more cash for the startup, the company told CNBC on Thursday.

Helsinki-headquartered Distance develops technology that it says can turn any transparent surface into an augmented-reality display, enabling the user to see 3D digital objects overlayed on top of the panel they're viewing.

This avoids the need for any clunky hardware, like a mixed reality headset or augmented reality glasses, both of which require a user to pull an actual device over their eyes to immerse themselves in the experience.

«One of the great barriers for mixed-reality is that, as long as you need to put something on your head, it will never be effortless or elegant as a solution,» Urho Konttori, CEO and co-founder of Distance, told CNBC in an interview earlier this week. Konttori was formerly chief technology officer of Varjo, another Helsinki-based mixed-reality firm.

Distance is primarily focused on selling into the auto, aerospace and defense markets.

The way Distance works is by using tracking technology to identify where you are looking and then compute the correct light field to match the exact positions of your eyes, according to Konttori.

Distance's solution adds a set of optics layers on top of most liquid crystal displays (LCDs), which allow its tech to beam an image onto the places where your eyes are focusing.

Using this technique, Distance can separate