Is Palmer Luckey seriously contemplating a bid for virtual reality headset maker HTC Vive?
The tech wonder boy and millionaire asked his 56,500 followers in an Aug. 25 tweet if he should buy the headset, the company or neither. Nearly 6,500 respondents weighed in as of press time. Fifty-six percent voted for the company, 23% were in favor of the headset, and 21% said neither.
Luckey earned the Business Journal’s Business Person of the Year honors in 2014 in the tech sector after selling Irvine-based Oculus VR Inc. for $2 billion to Facebook Inc., fueling a meteoric rise in a nascent segment that led to him landing the cover of Time magazine.
The front-page image of Luckey floating in the air was mocked in the latest season of HBO’s Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the media.
Luckey, who recently became a marina owner in Huntington Beach, was pushed out of Facebook in March after word spread that he bankrolled a pro-Donald Trump organization that put out memes, fake news and other criticisms of Hillary Clinton for months leading up to the presidential election.
The VR segment has yet to meet the hype amid tepid consumer adoption.
Worldwide shipments of augmented reality and VR headsets hit 2.3 million units in the first quarter, according to market tracker IDC.
Seoul-based Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest consumer electronics company, led the pack with nearly 490,000 unit sales of its Samsung GearVR product. Tokyo-based Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.’s PlayStation VR headset was second with 429,000 unit sales. HTC came in third with about 191,000 units sold, and Facebook was fourth with about 99,000 units.
The Business Journal in May reported the Long Beach native paid about $34.5 million for Huntington Harbor Bay Club, a roughly 13-acre waterfront site on Warner Avenue about half a mile from the ocean.
It includes an entertainment venue that’s under renovation, and boat slips that can hold a few hundred boats and yachts.
Luckey would likely have to pull resources to acquire HTC or the VR headset unit. Forbes estimates his net worth at $730 million. Taiwan-based HTC’s stock is down 95% since 2011 but still has a market cap of $1.9 billion.
He didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Tech and Farming
Investors, analysts, educators, government officials and entrepreneurs discussed several pressing issues around water sustainability, innovation and trends at a recent event hosted by SustainOC.
Water Solutions 2 on Aug. 29 at the University of California-Irvine’s Applied Innovation featured several panels in water tech investments, the market in California, smart technology, desalination, adoption cycles, early and late adopters, and three-minute pitches by several local startups, including Westminster-based BioLargo Inc. and Instill Water Tech in Costa Mesa.
Agriculture technology is an emerging market for several OC-based companies, including Santa Ana-based Iteris Inc., which expanded its business model from providing primarily transportation data to selling agriculture and weather insights.
The global water market, which comprises utilities and services, generated nearly $625 billion in sales last year, according to Frost & Sullivan. Many technology companies have been trying to make in-roads with farmers across the state but have met with a cool response.
“There’s a lot of fatigue going on in the industry,” Hank Giglas, senior vice president on planning for the Western Growers Association, said during one panel discussion. The Irvine-based organization represents local and regional family farmers in Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico that provide more than half the country’s fresh fruits, vegetables and tree nuts.
Trace3 Partnership
Irvine IT services provider Trace3 has partnered with UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business Center for Digital Transformation and Office of Executive Education to launch a new Business Leadership for IT Executives certificate program.
The inaugural program, held Sept. 20 to 22 on the UCI campus, will cover digital transformation; business strategy; innovation; thinking like a CFO; and power, influence and communication. Interactive coursework will be presented by UCI business professors and experienced IT executives.
Trace3, launched in 2002 by entrepreneur Hayes Drumwright with $100 in his pocket, has annual revenue of more than $500 million.
Drumwright recently sold his majority stake in the company on undisclosed terms to Miami-based private equity owner H.I.G. Capital, which has more than $21 billion in equity capital under management and investments in about 200 companies.
