Holographic capture startup 8i, maker of Holo AR app for iOS and Android, says it is laying off up to half of its 70 full-time employees
New Zealand- and Los Angeles-based holographic capture startup 8i is having significant layoffs that could impact more than 30 staffers.
Context & Ripple Effects
8i's cuts land mid-arc in a rough stretch for immersive-capture startups: enterprise AR player Daqri had already shed about a quarter of its nearly 400-person workforce despite raising $132M earlier in 2017, and mixed reality firm Avegant would soon cut more than half its staff while swapping CEOs. 8i is smaller — up to half of just 70 employees, more than 30 people — but the direction is identical across both consumer and enterprise corners of the category.
What makes this round notable is where the survivors are heading: Disney-backed Jaunt would later lay off a significant portion of its own staff specifically to shutter VR projects and refocus on AR and volumetric capture — the exact field 8i is retreating from at scale. Years on, Meta's Reality Labs unit absorbed its own layoffs of around 700 people, showing the cost pressure never left the segment.
First-order effects
- More than 30 of 8i's 70 full-time employees lose their jobs, directly shrinking the team behind the Holo AR app for iOS and Android across its New Zealand and Los Angeles operations.
Second-order effects
- Rivals chasing the same volumetric-capture market face a consolidating field: Jaunt's later pivot into AR and volumetric tech means fewer, more focused competitors even as total headcount across the niche contracts.
- Los Angeles' bid to stay a major tech hub loses part of its immersive-media bench, pushing experienced capture and AR talent toward larger employers or out of the category.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — Daqri, Avegant, Jaunt, 8i, and eventually Meta all cutting — standalone AR/volumetric startups give way to a structure where only well-capitalized platform owners can sustain the expensive capture pipeline, with startup innovation migrating inside giants or dying outright.
The trend: Immersive capture is consolidating from venture-backed independents toward a few deeply funded platforms, with each layoff round thinning the independent field.