Virtuix announced that it raised another $19 million as part of its Series A-2 funding, which it will use to launch its consumer VR treadmill, the Omni One, this year.
Virtuix worked with SeedInvest, an online investing company, to complete the Series A-2 funding. Over 6,500 investors participated in this round.
Virtuix unveiled the Omni One towards the end of last year, which it says was inspired by its previously available commercial VR treadmill, the Omni Pro. Unlike the Pro, the Omni One is a consumer device aimed for home use.
While it’s called a VR treadmill, nothing actually moves on the device – instead, the user wears a special pair of shoes that slip along the round disk surface. This, along with an attached swiveling harness strap, allows them to walk and turn on the spot. In theory, this translates to 360 degree movement in VR, facilitated by walking on the spot on the Omni One.
Of course, Virtuix has been around a long time and its initial treadmills didn’t take off in the home market. The One is designed to be a lighter, sleeker and more compact than previous iterations, which Virtuix hopes will make it better for home use, though it’s still likely only to appeal to only the most enthusiastic of VR users. It will ship with everything needed to get started, including a standalone VR headset with its own operating software and games store, with 30 titles available at launch. We don’t have a list of compatible games at this time.
Promotional material from last year shows a Pico Neo 2 headset being used with the Omni One, but Virtuix said this was just for demonstration purposes and the exact model of included headset yet to be decided on. We reached out to Virtuix for an update and they said it still had not been decided yet, but they “will do so in the next month.”
The Omni One will retail for $1995, or $55/month via a payment plan, and will be available sometime later this year.
