Blippar raises $54 mn Series D funding led by Malaysian Govt-owned fund

The augmented reality company will use the money to expand team, acquisition, to expand presence in education space

Blippar Inc., a technology company specialising in augmented reality, artificial intelligence and computer vision, raised $54 million Series D funding round led by Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the strategic investment fund of the Government of Malaysia. The funding also included follow-on investment from Blippar's existing investor base.

The company is based in UK having presence in India at Delhi (head office), Mumbai and Bangalore.

The investment will support expansion of its engineering capabilities and presence in San Francisco.

"2016 is poised to be the biggest year in Blippar's history as we not only expand our breadth and depth as a business - across our team, technology capabilities and product offerings - but also reach new heights with our vision to become a true visual discovery engine for the physical world," said Ambarish Mitra, Blippar Co-Founder and CEO.

This latest funding round will allow the company to continue to capture top engineering talent, further grow company's leading global install base, create campaigns for company's brand partners, said the company.

In addition, the financing will enable Blippar to invest in its user acquisition to drive a habitual behavior.

"The company has already seen exponential user adoption with a global user base of over 65 million users, and partnerships with some of the biggest and most exciting media owners and brands in the world," said Mitra in a statement.

They include Nestle, Conde Nast, TIME Inc., Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Heinz, Universal Pictures, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Disney and Jaguar.

The company will additionally use the funding to continue growing its presence within the education sector and build on early use cases to become the default platform for educators seeking to empower classrooms with interactive visual learning experiences.

Currently the company has around 60 engineers in its San Francisco and Mountain View offices and a total of more than 300 employees across 14 global offices.