Eyefluence nets $14M to keep making tech that tracks eyes as VR/AR input

Investors have poured $14 million more into California-based tech startup Eyefluence as it continues to develop decent eye-tracking tech that can be used to control virtual reality and augmented reality programs.

What's interesting here is that a significant sum is being sunk into a company that champions eye controls as a key component of high-quality VR/AR experiences, even though very few VR/AR headsets currently support eye-tracking. 

One that does is Fove, though its yet unclear when the firm behind it has yet to release its eponymous eye-tracking VR headset.

"We believe that eye tracking opens the window to the player's soul in VR, and can make experiences more engaging and believable," Fove co-founder and former SCEJ producer Yuka Kojima told Gamasutra earlier this year, opining that once game developers saw what eye-tracking tech could do for VR game design they would "push for this technology to be in more headsets."

Eyefluence similarly advertises its tech as an ideal way to interact with interfaces in VR and AR headsets ("Anything you can do with your finger on a smartphone, you should be able to do with your eyes on a head-mounted display," Eyefluence CEO Jim Marggraff recently told TechCrunch) and it's not hard to imagine how it might be used for game interfaces. 

Tallied up with the $7.6 million it raised last year from investors, Eyefluence has now drummed up over $21 million as it continues to develop its technology in concert with unnamed consumer electronics, mobile device and VR/AR headset manufacturers.