In autumn 2018, Wired named Varjo, a Finnish developer of virtual reality headsets, as one of Helsinki’s hottest startups – with more and more joining in the chorus of praises. And for good reason.
Varjo’s technology is unanimously considered as revolutionary. VR headsets have typically offered grainy imagery, preventing their use in demanding professional applications, but the Varjo headset designed for industrial use is capable of producing an image that is 20 times sharper than the VR headsets intended for consumer use. Varjo’s headset matches the resolution of the human eye, and, like the human eye, the view in the center field of vision is hyper sharp. The headset’s most important application areas include automotive and aerospace design, training, simulation and architecture.
Established in 2016, Varjo has quickly advanced in relation to how demanding the technology is. In autumn 2018, the company raised EUR 26.5 million in venture capital for its go-to-market launch. Sales of the headset are expected to begin in the first part of 2019.
Lexia has been involved in bringing Varjo’s vision into focus since 2017, when we assisted with an agreement made with a contract manufacturer. Following that, we handled the business’s contractual law and data protection issues.
“Lexia provides us with high-quality support, and the firm has been able to respond to all our wishes amazingly quickly, something that has been important to us in the hectic startup phase. Additionally, we value Lexia’s strong expertise in international contracts and its negotiating experience with foreign players. It’s also very important that the lawyer supporting the startup sees the big picture and is able to zoom in on the issues that are important to us,” says Varjo’s COO Timo Toikkanen.
Lexia is an experienced legal advisor for startup and growth companies. We know what kind of legal help startup entrepreneurs need and we can get all the stepping stones into place to advance the business.
Financing has been raised for Varjo’s production costs, product development, and marketing, and to scale up its number of employees: the company has announced that it will double its number of employees by summer 2019. The signs are promising and the expectations are high.
”Later in 2019 we will introduce a Mixed Reality Add-on to our headset, enabling seamless shifting between the analog reality, virtual reality, and augmented content. It will be a revolutionary upgrade to our first product,” Timo Toikkanen says.
