Holoxica Enters Liquidation

Holoxica, one of the pioneers of commercial light field display technologies, has entered liquidation due to cashflow challenges – with bosses saying it could not continue without significant investment even though its tech had attracted international interest.

Founded in 2008, Holoxica pioneered patented dynamically changeable holographic displays where multiple people can experience full colour motion video 3D images simultaneously without wearing headsets. It also created several world first holograms, including the first holographic 3D anatomy atlas.

The company pivoted from hardware to software in 2019 and pioneered Telepresence (2020) and Telexistence (2021) technologies which allows full two-way 3D video conferencing and remote 3D visualisation with robotics or haptics.

In recent months, the Scottish company had attracted international interest in its technology as a solution for providing emergency medical care in space, enabling astronauts to engage with medical experts on the ground with a 3D videoconferencing tool, 3D medical animations and medical scans in natural 3D. The 3D videoconferencing tech was demonstrated at COP26 in a 5G-to-5G 3D videochat with Nokia, the University of Glasgow and the Scotland 5G Centre.

The Holoxica telexistence defence technology allowed a human operator to be fully immersed and remotely ‘telepresent’ by using robots in hazardous situations such as bomb disposal, de-mining or nuclear decommissioning. In 2022, Holoxica developed a Human Digital Twin concept demonstrator for the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and defence technology company QinetiQ.

Shona Campbell, insolvency partner at business advisory and accountancy firm Henderson Loggie, has been appointed as liquidator of Holoxica. Global supply chain issues, changes in trading conditions because of Brexit and the pandemic had created cashflow challenges for the company.

Ms Campbell had this to say: ‘Holoxica has developed innovative and respected technology and market ready products that have attracted significant grant funding and interest from global brands and defence organisations but it cannot continue trading without further investment. It offers organisations with existing market reach in 3D visualisation and medical imaging the opportunity to acquire valuable intellectual property, both in hardware and software.’ Samsung, LG, Sony, BOE all have light field displays but they have not heavily invested in manufacturing so far, unlike companies such as Leia and Forma Vision who have just received an Accenture strategic investment.

Google released their light field display with Project Starline for immersive 3D videochatting a year after Holoxica released its own 3D videoconferencing tech on light field displays.

Holoxica CEO Wendy Lamin said: ‘I am very proud of our technology and the many successes we have achieved but it’s been a tough environment for small businesses and, despite grant funding and great support from Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and small investors, Holoxica can’t continue in its present form. We have shown that there is a more natural and collaborative way to do 3D, holograms and the metaverse besides using virtual reality and augmented reality headsets, but we have been just ahead of the times. We don’t have the huge marketing budgets of Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others and scale up investment is required.’