Disney-backed startup Jaunt says it has laid off a significant portion of its staff and will shutter VR projects to focus on AR and volumetric capture tech
Context & Ripple Effects
Jaunt was one of the best-funded names in cinematic VR, backed by Disney and GV, and its bet on volumetric capture made it a supplier to studios experimenting with immersive formats. But the VR content market it built for never materialized at scale: holographic capture startup 8i had already cut up to half its staff in late 2017, and by mid-2018 IMAX canceled the VR camera it developed with Google as Google itself shifted attention to AR. Jaunt's layoffs and pivot to AR and volumetric capture are the same retreat playing out at the best-capitalized player in the category.
The aftermath confirms the arc rather than reversing it: within a year, enterprise AR headset maker Daqri — which had reportedly raised $275M — closed its HQ ahead of a shutdown, and Verizon ultimately bought Jaunt's software and technology assets while the company pivoted to AR. Even Jaunt's talent dispersed toward platforms: founding executive Arthur van Hoff was reportedly hired as a senior architect at Apple.
First-order effects
- A significant portion of Jaunt's staff is laid off immediately, and the studio's VR production pipeline — the output Disney and other backers funded — stops being developed.
- Jaunt's remaining business concentrates on AR tooling and volumetric capture, shrinking the pool of independent VR content studios available to media partners.
Second-order effects
- Other VR hardware and content ventures face harder fundraising conversations as a flagship Disney-backed studio exits the category; Daqri's subsequent shutdown shows the squeeze extended to enterprise AR too.
- Buyers of immersive capture technology consolidate around platform owners — Apple absorbing Jaunt talent and Verizon acquiring Jaunt's software assets — rather than funding standalone startups.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, immersive-media value migrates from venture-funded content studios to large platforms that can absorb the technology cheaply in asset sales, leaving startups with quasi-exit outcomes instead of independent scale.
- The VR-to-AR repositioning across Google, IMAX, Jaunt, and Daqri points to an industry structure where AR becomes the surviving investment thesis and pure-play VR content companies largely disappear as independents.
The trend: Venture-backed VR content and hardware startups are winding down or being absorbed by platform owners as capital and strategic attention shift to AR.