Red 6 fetches $70M in Series B investment round

Augmented reality startup Red 6 has completed a Series B funding round that fetched $70 million in capital to continue investing in its proprietary technology for training military pilots.

For Red 6, this latest capital raise comes two years after the company completed a $30 million Series A funding round to support the development of its Airborne Tactical Augmented Reality System also known as ATARS. Orlando, Florida-headquartered Red 6 opened for business in 2018.

Lockheed Martin's venture capital arm is an existing investor in Red 6 that participated in the Series B round, which also included an investment from the HorizonX organization. Private equity firm AE Industrial Partners acts as the lead manager of HorizonX with Boeing as the major industry partner. RedBird Capital Partners led the Series B round.

“Daniel and the Red 6 team are leveraging the power of modern technology to develop dual-use applications that enhance training practices used by institutions like the U.S. Department of Defense, while also blending the digital and physical world in outdoor entertainment venues and similar use cases," RedBird Partner Julia Wittlin said in a release Friday.

Red 6's ATARS system works to give pilots the similar cognitive experience of physically flying planes and capture the kind of environments they would be in to ensure the training exercise is realistic and scalable.

The list of Series B participants also included Alpha Edison, Accelerator Investments through the Disney Accelerator Program, Washington Harbour Partners, M-Cor Holdings, the U.K.’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund, Moonshots Capital, Irongate, State of Florida Opportunity Fund, Alumni Ventures, Alliance Holdings, Alcazar Capital, and Robert Downey Jr.’s Downey Labs.

Washington Harbour Partners is the private equity backer of Groundswell Technologies, a digital transformation and low-code/no-code software integrator led by industry veterans George Batsakis and Jerad Speigel.

Below Red6 CEO Daniel Robinson talks about augmented reality and DOD in this broadcast from CNBC.