The XR Weekly Highlights (July 14, 2025): XPANCEO Achieves Unicorn Status, Upload’s Latest Showcase, and More!

Oh man, so an Italian dude just won Wimbledon. How cool is that? Like, as an Italian myself, I feel this weird urge to try and do something equally epic. Got any ideas? Shout it out in the comments. Meanwhile, let me just do what I’ve done a gazillion times—wrap up this week’s XR headlines. Here goes!

Big News of the Week!

XPANCEO hits unicorn status like whoa

XPANCEO, a company from Dubai doing wild stuff with smart contact lenses, just snagged a cool $250 million in investments. That bumps them up to a $1.35 billion valuation—bam, they’re a “unicorn” now. Opportunity Adventure, or something like that, led the investment round, so now they can tinker away at their prototypes. Road To VR thinks they’ll launch around 2026, but I dunno. Could be too soon.

I’m stoked on smart contact lenses—XPANCEO showed me their lab once, remotely. I mean, come on, they had working prototypes at AWE Europe using stuff like everyday wear lenses. So, fingers crossed, right? Maybe their first product won’t be huge, but something niche, like monitoring glucose for diabetics, would be rad. Big kudos to Roman Axelrod and Valentyn Volkov for steering this wild ship. Big dreams about flying to Dubai just to say hi!

More Headlines!

Upload VR Summer Showcase 2025

Upload VR, those folks always shine some light on indie XR games. Their 2025 showcase, per usual, threw a bunch of announcements our way. No massive bombshells, since big studios save their trump cards for big yakiniku-style events like Gamescom. But it’s still a neat way to spotlight tiny studios.

Everywhere Electric is coming July 23, and it’s like co-op games, but on your phone and VR. Wild, huh? Then there’s Reach from Ndreams, Virtual Skate—watch your step there—and Fixer Undercover with MacGyver-like vibes. Plus, How To God, which screams Black & White-style chaos. Honestly, my brain’s still buzzing from all the indie magic.

Samsung goes hush-hush on Moohan?

Okay, weird stuff. Analysts said Samsung was gonna show off Project Moohan at Unpacked. Total crickets, though, at the actual event. Are they tweaking it or playing coy? Maybe it needs more sparkle or they’re just holding back for dramatic effect.

Meta and Luxottica, sitting in a tree

Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t kidding—Meta dumped $3.5 billion into Luxottica shares. Yep, owning glassware control. No wedding bells, just a strategic alliance. The grapevine says they want 5% eventually. Sounds like a slow-dance deal to me.

Canon and MR, still a thing

Oh, Canon’s cooking something up with their Moby-Dick-priced MR headset. Some Canon guy hinted at a consumer version. You catching this trend? More mixed reality headsets, probably not named Vision Pro Rival. They better be real!

Viture’s Fancy Glasses

More glasses! Viture launched the Luma Series with a 152-inch virtual screen gimmick. Crazy tech with Sony micro-OLED panels, but who needs it? They also added real-time 3D conversion to media. Is this the next craze or am I losing my mind?

Leaked Ray-Bans and Meta Drama

Leaks doing their rounds! New Ray-Bans called Aperol and Bellini are supposedly dropping soon. Makes you think if Meta announces them along with another model called Hypernova, it could be a rollercoaster confusion. Or maybe they’ll ride the thunder just fine!

Quick Nuggets!

Crazy LAN party in VR, anyone? Some guy named Jeff Baz—who, in his non-VR time, makes chopsticks—organized a massive VR LAN event with 130 headsets. Mind blown!

Also, a big smartglasses hackathon was buzzing this weekend, and Mentra’s stirring the pot with AR tech. Hype train, anyone?

Oh, BTW, if you’re into XR prototypes, ShapesXR’s got some neat new animation features you might wanna peep.

And before I forget, if you can, throw some support to the Red Cross for Ukraine. Here’s hoping for better days. Cheers, folks!