Swave, the startup building true holographic smart glasses, bags €27M

In the 1977 Star Wars film A New Hope, there’s an iconic scene where the beloved droid R2-D2 casts a beam of light to create a hologram of Princess Leia pleading for the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Sadly, almost 50 years on, we’re not much closer to the true holograms science fiction promised us, let alone the teleportation devices and flying cars. 

Yes, we have AR and VR headsets like Microsoft’s HoloLens or Apple’s Vision Pro, but those simply use transparent screens to give the effect of a hologram. Even Tupac’s famous “live” Coachella performance 16 years after his death was pulled off using a trick of light called Pepper’s ghost. Nope, not a real hologram folks. 

Real holograms bend light to create 3D images that hover in the air and are visible from every angle — a bit like how Princess Leia was depicted ...