Rony Abovitz, the co-founder and CEO of lavishly funded augmented reality company Magic Leap, will step down from his position, reports Business Insider. Abovitz’s planned departure, which doesn’t yet have a concrete date, marks an unceremonious end to his tenure at the helm of Magic Leap, a once-buzzy startup that earned a high profile for how secretive it was early on about its technology and the eye-popping amounts of venture capital it raised.
Magic Leap has so far raised about $3 billion dollars over the last decade, though it has only released one product, the Magic Leap 1 headset. The company raised $350 million of that funding just earlier this month, after laying off about 1,000 employees back in April and ditching its consumer business to focus on selling enterprise-grade devices to companies.
Abovitz will stay on at the company for the time being, BI reports. He’ll remain CEO for now until a replacement is publicly named and takes on the role; it’s not clear if Magic Leap’s board has decided on someone already and has simply decided not to announce it yet. Abovitz describes the change as “a natural next step” for Magic Leap, and after he is no longer in charge he will “provide strategy and vision from a Board level,” according to a company memo Abovitz sent to employees on Thursday and obtained by BI.
