Oculus VR raised about $2.4 million through Kickstarter for its Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset in 2012.
Palmer Luckey created an early version of the headset before launching a Kickstarter campaign in August 2012. The campaign sought $250,000, but it exceeded that target by a wide margin and attracted support from more than 9,500 backers.
The campaign helped bring renewed attention to consumer virtual reality and gave Oculus resources to develop developer kits. In 2014, Facebook announced an agreement to acquire Oculus VR for approximately $2 billion. The company’s technology later became part of Meta’s virtual-reality business.
The original Kickstarter device was a development platform, not the final consumer headset. Oculus Rift therefore illustrates how crowdfunding can validate interest and finance early hardware development before a startup has a mass-market product.