Recon Instruments Lands $4-Million Investment

George Hincapie | BCBusiness

The local maker of hi-tech eyewear secures a $4-million investment from Intel

Recon Instruments, the Vancouver-based maker of Google Glass-like headwear, announced Friday that it had landed a $4-million investment from Intel Capital, in the wake of shipping 50,000 units of its heads-up display units in part through a retail partnership with Apple.
 
The $4-million investment from Intel Capital, the chipmaker’s investment wing, follows Recon’s last $10-million round back in January 2012, led by local investor Vanedge Capital.
 
Recon plans to spend the investment on the development of its yet-to-be-shipped Recon Jet, a marketing and global sales expansion and day-to-day operations, says Recon’s chief marketing officer Tom Folwer.
 
Along with the latest cash injection, Recon also announced that it had more than shipped 50,000 units worldwide of it’s Snow model, Recon’s hi-tech headgear for skiers. As VentureBeat notes, that’s multiples of what Google Glass has shipped to its early adopter partners.
 
Further afield is Recon’s latest offering, Recon Jet, a 28-gram device with GPS, Wi-Fi, a dual-core 1 GHz processor, an HD camera and HD display. Unlike Google, the company gears its heads-up display technology towards specific verticals: action sports, cycling and running. With the launch of Jet, Recon hopes to bring its wearable devices into niche markets, like medicine and emergency services, said co-founder Hamid Abdollahi in an interview with BCBusiness in June.
 
While pre-sales kicked off in June, Jet is still in the late stages of development, says Fowler. He expects Jet’s first shipment in December.