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Jonathan Waldern

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Jonathan Waldern (also credited as Jonathan D. Waldern or Jon Waldern) is a British engineer and entrepreneur who founded W Industries in Leicester in October 1987, the company that became Virtuality and sold the first mass-produced virtual reality entertainment systems in the early 1990s.[1][2][3] After Virtuality entered administration in 1997 he led a management buyout that became Retinal Displays, then moved into holographic optics, founding DigiLens Telecom in 1999 and its successor DigiLens, a maker of waveguide displays for augmented reality headsets and head-up displays.[4][5] He was chief technology officer of Meta Materials Inc. from 2020 to 2023 and joined Luminit, a holographic optics manufacturer in Torrance, California, as chief technology officer in January 2024; Luminit's leadership page and its 2025 press releases now list him as its chief executive.[6][7][8]

Waldern holds a PhD from Loughborough University of Technology and is named on more than 170 patents, most of them covering extended reality waveguide displays, holographic materials and their manufacturing processes, according to his employers' biographies.[5][6] He is listed in the XR Hall of Fame maintained by Augmented World Expo as the developer of the first production VR workstations at Virtuality and the founder of DigiLens.[9]

Reviewed 20 September 2026. Career dates, company roles, financial figures, product details, quotations and every cited source. About review dates.

Early life and education

Waldern's early virtual reality work took place in the Human Computer Interface Research Unit at Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University), where he worked with Professor Ernest Edmonds, who had made human-computer interaction a research focus of the polytechnic's computing department in 1974; the unit later moved to Loughborough University.[2][10] Before the company was founded, this research had produced a prototype nicknamed the "Roaming Caterpillar": a large black-and-white monitor with handles on each side, carried on a flexible arm on castors and sheathed in a rubber concertina. The monitor's position was tracked acoustically by three fixed speakers emitting clicks in sequence, the user could pick up virtual objects by pinching fingers fitted with tracking tubes, and a head-mounted visor with a rotating shutter gave a stereoscopic view by alternating the images for each eye. The device was demonstrated by presenter Maggie Philbin on the BBC television programme Tomorrow's World.[2][3]

An IEEE Communications Society history timeline dates his doctoral research to 1985-1990, states that the prototyping was done at the Leicester Polytechnic unit with support from IBM Research Labs, and says he founded his company in 1987 while completing the PhD.[1] His later corporate biographies describe the degree as a PhD in computer science (virtual reality) from Loughborough University of Technology, supported by IBM Research Labs.[5][7]

Career

W Industries and Virtuality (1987-1997)

Waldern founded W Industries in Leicester in October 1987 with three colleagues: Al Humrich, a graphics and software specialist; Richard Holmes, an engineer who had worked at Rolls-Royce; and Terry Rowley, a mathematician who had worked on flight simulators at Marconi.[2][3][11] According to Time Extension's account, drawn from Holmes, Waldern put up the majority of the founding capital while the other three invested 2,500 pounds each.[3] Tech Monitor reported in 1993 that Waldern had built a virtual reality workstation during his PhD at Loughborough, spent two years with Human Computer Interface Consultancy Ltd, and chose Leicester as the company's base because it was cheap.[11] The four started by building equipment in their garages and moved into their own premises in January 1989.[2]

In early 1989 the company won a "best emerging technology" award carrying a 20,000 pound prize, and a leisure company then bought 75 percent of its equity for an investment of 1 million pounds.[2] The stand-up Virtuality unit was launched at the Computer Graphics 90 exhibition at Alexandra Palace, London, in November 1990; the parent company went into liquidation at about the same time, but W Industries had already been sold on to another owner. A sit-down unit followed at Wembley in March 1991, and in May 1991 the company moved into 22,000 square feet of premises on an industrial park in Leicester.[2] The first systems, sold from 17,500 pounds, ran on an Amiga 3000 motherboard with two custom graphics boards based on Texas Instruments TMS34020 processors and used a head-mounted display called the Visette with colour TFT LCD screens of 276 by 376 pixels.[2] The stand-up 1000CS and sit-down Virtuality 1000SD arcade cabinets went on sale in 1991, and 2000-series cabinets built around an Intel 486DX33 host followed.[12] Games such as Dactyl Nightmare and Grid Busters were played in arcades and other location-based entertainment venues including London's Trocadero and San Francisco's Embarcadero.[13]

In 1991 the venture capital firm Apax Partners paid 2.4 million pounds for a 67 percent stake.[11] By September 1993, when the company changed its name to Virtuality Group plc, Waldern was its founder and managing director with a 15 percent holding. Turnover for 1992 had risen 200 percent to 5.3 million pounds with a first pre-tax profit of 214,000 pounds; the cabinets sold for 25,000 to 40,000 pounds each, and a licensing deal with Sega signed in June 1993, under which Virtuality licensed its operating system for the Sega VR arcade game, was worth 2.3 million pounds over its first two years.[11] The flotation on the London Stock Exchange in October 1993 placed 7.43 million shares at 1.70 pounds, valuing the company at 44.4 million pounds; the shares rose to 3.15 pounds on the first day of trading and closed at 2.89 pounds.[14][13] The company reported a pre-tax loss of 365,000 pounds on turnover of 5.4 million pounds for 1993.[15]

In March 1995 Virtuality, with Waldern as chief executive, signed a licensing agreement with Atari to develop two virtual reality games and, under a separate agreement, a head-mounted display for the Atari Jaguar console, with the headset targeted for retail by Christmas 1995. Turnover for 1994 was 9.13 million pounds, losses were 1.4 million pounds, and 371 Series 2000 units had been sold during the year.[16] Jaguar VR was announced at the 1995 Consumer Electronics Show and demonstrated at E3 1995 with a version of Missile Command, but Next Generation magazine reported that the E3 demonstration was actually Virtuality's own arcade hardware disguised as the console headset, and the partnership ended without a consumer product reaching stores.[17]

Entertainment revenue then fell. For the first half of 1996 the company reported losses of 3.8 million pounds, against 583,000 pounds a year earlier, on revenue down 44 percent to 3.5 million pounds, and said it would move away from entertainment toward licensing its 3D graphics, tracking and navigation technology.[18] Trading in the shares was suspended in February 1997, and by March 1997 the group was in administration under Arthur Andersen, which offered the headset business and its 60 employees in the UK, US and Japan for sale.[19][20]

Retinal Displays (1997-1999)

In May 1997 Waldern, described as the firm's chief technologist and founder, was leading a proposed management buyout with three of the company's senior managers.[4] The European entertainment business went to the Berlin company Cybermind Interactive Europe in July 1997, which also bought the rights to the Elysium system that Virtuality had developed with IBM; the four-person buyout group formed Retinal Displays Inc. and did not pursue Elysium.[19] Retinal Displays, based in Los Altos, California, completed its acquisition of Virtuality in November 1997 with Waldern as chief executive and president. The company held licensing deals with the Japanese toy maker Takara and with Philips and planned to concentrate on personal displays for portable systems.[21] Its headset design was licensed to Takara as the Dynovisor and to Philips as the Scuba Visor.[12] Waldern's later biographies describe Retinal Displays' product as a three-element molded aspheric lens system for low-cost consumer 3D displays.[5] Alphr reported in 2015 that the 299 US dollar Scuba headset sold more than 55,000 units.[13]

DigiLens Telecom and SBG Labs (1999-2004)

Waldern founded DigiLens Telecom in Sunnyvale, California, in 1999 to make dense wavelength division multiplexing components for optical telecommunications based on electrically switchable Bragg gratings.[5][22] The company built its own wafer fab in Sunnyvale at a cost that Light Reading put at 25 to 35 million US dollars. In January 2003, with Waldern as chief executive, it closed the fab and laid off 20 of its 40 staff, having already cut a quarter of its workforce; display and imaging components were by then half of its revenue.[23] DigiLens ceased operations in March 2003 after failing to raise a 15 million dollar round; it had raised 82 million dollars across five rounds. Waldern left that month to start SBG Labs, which acquired the DigiLens patent portfolio and its Sunnyvale headquarters in a foreclosure sale in October 2003.[24] SBG Labs later sold the telecom photonic chip business to the Japanese glass maker Hoya.[25]

DigiLens Inc. (2004-2020)

Waldern's biographies date the founding of DigiLens Inc. to 2004, the year they give for the founding of SBG Labs (named for the switchable Bragg grating), which later took back the DigiLens name.[5][22] The company applied the switchable holographic gratings developed for telecom to diffractive waveguide optics, manufacturing the diffractive optics by photographically printing the nanostructures rather than etching them; the company stated that its electrically switchable gratings gave higher efficiency and a wider field of view than etched alternatives.[26] In May 2014 the company raised 2 million dollars for a clean room and pilot production line, and it later took investment from In-Q-Tel and closed a 6.3 million dollar round.[25]

Early products were head-up displays. DigiLens developed a waveguide HUD for Rockwell Collins that was flying in aircraft by 2017, and at CES 2016 it showed a 3 mm thick waveguide display that clipped magnetically into a BMW motorcycle helmet prototype.[26][27] Waldern, then founder and chief executive, said at the time: "Beyond night vision, transportation, enterprise and gaming, we believe we have the key AR display technology for hands-free wearable solutions like HUDs and eyeglasses-type solutions."[27] In January 2017 DigiLens closed a 22 million dollar Series B round from Sony, Foxconn, Continental and Panasonic together with venture investors Alsop Louie Partners, Bold Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners and Dolby Family Ventures.[26] By the 50 million dollar Series C round of May 2019, the company's chief executive was Chris Pickett; Waldern's biographies list his later DigiLens roles as chairman, chief technology officer and chief strategy officer.[28][5]

Waldern co-authored SPIE conference papers on the DigiLens technology, including a 2018 paper on switchable Bragg grating waveguide optics for augmented reality and a 2020 paper on holographic photopolymers for wide-angle AR waveguides.[29][30] He left DigiLens in August 2020.[22]

Meta Materials and Luminit (2020-present)

On 17 December 2020 Meta Materials Inc. announced Waldern as its chief technology officer. In the announcement Waldern said he planned to deliver products in electric vehicles, transparent 5G antennas, displays, energy, biosensors and healthcare wearables, and that he was "attracted by the potential of META's transformative and differentiated platform technology that is industry agnostic."[5] He held the post until 2023.[6] Luminit's executive biography credits him with launching, in 2023, a range of metamaterial-enhanced prescription lenses for AR glasses with electrochromic dimming, heating and radio-frequency antennas.[7]

On 16 January 2024 Luminit LLC of Torrance, California, a maker of holographic light-shaping diffusers and other optical films, named Waldern chief technology officer with responsibility for global technology and engineering, new product introductions, strategic partnerships and licensed manufacturing. In the announcement he said: "I believe Artificial Intelligence powered applications will transform AR Head-Up Display and eyeglass demand in 2024."[6][8] Luminit's chairman and chief executive at that time, Engin Arik, handed the chief executive role to Mitch Jansen in April 2024.[31] By July 2025 Luminit's press releases identified Waldern as chief executive, and as of September 2026 its leadership page lists him as chief executive and technical officer, with Arik remaining chairman.[8][7]

Positions held

Years Organisation Role Notes
1987-1997 W Industries / Virtuality Group plc, Leicester Founder; managing director, later chief executive and chief technology officer VR arcade systems; London Stock Exchange flotation October 1993; administration 1997[11][14][16][20][5]
1997-1999 Retinal Displays, Los Altos, California Founder, chief executive and president Management buyout of Virtuality; Dynovisor and Scuba Visor licences[21][5]
1999-2003 DigiLens Telecom, Sunnyvale, California Founder, chairman and chief executive Switchable Bragg grating telecom components; ceased operations March 2003[23][24][5]
2003-2020 SBG Labs / DigiLens Inc., Sunnyvale Founder; chief executive, later chairman, chief technology officer and chief strategy officer Holographic waveguide displays for AR and HUDs; left August 2020[24][26][5][22]
2020-2023 Meta Materials Inc. Chief technology officer Appointed 17 December 2020[5][6]
2024-present Luminit, Torrance, California Chief technology officer (January 2024); chief executive and technical officer (by 2025) Holographic optical films and head-up displays[6][8][7]

Recognition

Augmented World Expo lists Waldern in its XR Hall of Fame, crediting him with the first production VR workstations at Virtuality and the founding of DigiLens.[9] His AWE speaker biography also states that he received three National Business Awards and a Society for Information Display "Best New Display" award for the motorcycle HUD glasses developed with BMW.[32] Four working Virtuality 1000-series units, two stand-up and two sit-down, are preserved at the Retro Computer Museum in Leicester.[33]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "First Mass-Produced VR Entertainment System Debuts". IEEE Communications Society. https://www.comsoc.org/node/19921. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Chris Hand (1991-11-14). "W Industries: A Report from Britain (Report on presentation by W Industries, Leicester Polytechnic Branch Meeting of the British Computer Society, 9th October 1991)". sci.virtual-worlds (Usenet), archived at VRtifacts. https://vrtifacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/vhist.html. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Lewis Packwood (2023-12-07). "Virtuality, The 1990s Pioneer That Sold The World On VR". Time Extension. https://www.timeextension.com/features/the-making-of-virtuality-the-1990s-pioneer-that-sold-the-world-on-vr. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Virtuality may be acquired by management buy-out". Telecompaper. 1997-05-05. https://www.telecompaper.com/news/virtuality-may-be-acquired-by-management-buy-out--107500. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 "Dr. Jonathan Waldern Joins Metamaterial as Chief Technology Officer". Meta Materials Inc.. 2020-12-17. https://metamaterial.com/dr-jonathan-waldern-joins-metamaterial-as-chief-technology-officer/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 "Luminit Names Jonathan Waldern as Chief Technology Officer". PR.com. Luminit LLC. 2024-01-16. https://www.pr.com/press-release/904027. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 "Luminit Executives". Luminit Inc.. https://luminitco.com/about-us/executives/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 "Luminit Inc. Doubles Down on U.S. Manufacturing to Meet Surging Demand for Mass Production of Holographic Optical Film". PR Newswire. Luminit Inc.. 2025-07-30. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/luminit-inc-doubles-down-on-us-manufacturing-to-meet-surging-demand-for-mass-production-of-holographic-optical-film-302516908.html. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Jonathan Waldern - XR Hall of Fame". Augmented World Expo. https://www.awexr.com/hall-of-fame/49-jonathan-waldern. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  10. ↑ "Professor Ernest Edmonds". Archives of IT. https://archivesit.org.uk/interviews/professor-ernest-edmonds/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 "W Industries changes its name to Virtuality, plans float by Christmas". Tech Monitor. 1993-09-01. https://techmonitor.ai/technology/w_industries_changes_its_name_to_virtuality_plans_float_by_christmas. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Virtuality - A New Reality of Promise, Two Decades Too Soon". Virtual Reality Society. https://www.vrs.org.uk/dr-jonathan-walden-virtuality-new-reality-promise-two-decades-soon/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Evan Gower (2015-12-16). "From Virtuality to reality: How virtual reality will change everything in 2016". Alphr. https://www.alphr.com/virtual-reality/1002247/from-virtuality-to-reality-how-virtual-reality-will-change-everything-in/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Virtuality makes share placing". Telecompaper. 1993-10-19. https://www.telecompaper.com/news/virtuality-makes-share-placing--8963. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  15. ↑ "Virtuality reports loss". Telecompaper. 1994-03-30. https://www.telecompaper.com/news/virtuality-reports-loss--21903. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Mathew Horsman (1995-03-17). "Virtuality ties up Atari deal". The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/virtuality-ties-up-atari-deal-1611632.html. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  17. ↑ Ernie Smith (2017-02-03). "Virtual Insanity: Atari's Last-Ditch Attempt to Save the Jaguar". Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/virtual-insanity-ataris-last-ditch-attempt-to-save-the-jaguar/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  18. ↑ "Virtuality moves away from entertainment". Telecompaper. 1996-10-03. https://www.telecompaper.com/news/virtuality-moves-away-from-entertainment--91540. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Germany's Cybermind acquires rights to Elysium VR system". Tech Monitor. 1997-08-04. https://techmonitor.ai/technology/germanys_cybermind_acquires_rights_to_elysium_vr_system. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Virtuality Group is bankrupt". Telecompaper. 1997-03-20. https://www.telecompaper.com/news/virtuality-group-is-bankrupt--104286. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 "Retinal Displays completes Virtuality acquisition". Telecompaper. 1997-11-17. https://www.telecompaper.com/news/retinal-displays-completes-virtuality-acquisition--122939. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 Christopher Grayson (2020-08-04). "Jonathan Waldern Departs DigiLens". Giganti.Co. https://www.giganti.co/WaldernExitsDigiLens. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "DigiLens Shrinks Another 50 Percent". Light Reading. 2003-01-09. https://www.lightreading.com/business-management/digilens-shrinks-another-50-percent. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 "DigiLens Patents Sold". Light Reading. 2003-10-31. https://www.lightreading.com/business-management/digilens-patents-sold. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 "$22M round 'will bring augmented reality optics to market'". optics.org. 2017-01-20. https://optics.org/news/22m-round-will-bring-augmented-reality-optics-to-market. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 "DigiLens Raises $22 Million to Accelerate Delivery of Multiple Augmented and Virtual Reality Products". GlobeNewswire. DigiLens Inc.. 2017-01-19. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/01/19/1217232/0/en/DigiLens-Raises-22-Million-to-Accelerate-Delivery-of-Multiple-Augmented-and-Virtual-Reality-Products.html. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "DigiLens(TM) - Groundbreaking Augmented Reality Display for Motorcyclists". GlobeNewswire. DigiLens Inc.. 2016-01-06. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/01/06/1217174/0/en/DigiLens-TM-Groundbreaking-Augmented-Reality-Display-for-Motorcyclists.html. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  28. ↑ Scott Hayden (2019-05-15). "Waveguide Maker DigiLens Closes $50 Million Series C Investment". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/continental-increases-stake-waveguide-display-company-digilens-raising-25m-series-c/. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  29. ↑ Milan Popovich, Jonathan D. Waldern, Alastair J. Grant (2018). "DigiLens switchable Bragg grating waveguide optics for augmented reality applications". Digital Optics for Immersive Displays (DOID18). SPIE. doi:10.1117/12.2315719.
  30. ↑ Jonathan D. Waldern, Shibu Abraham, Milan M. Popovich (2020). "DigiLens holographic photopolymers for wide angle AR waveguides". Photosensitive Materials and their Applications. SPIE. doi:10.1117/12.2561344.
  31. ↑ "Leadership Transition at Luminit: Dr. Mitch Jansen Assumes CEO Role as Dr. Engin Arik remains as Chairman of the Board". PR.com. Luminit LLC. 2024-04-24. https://www.pr.com/press-release/910424. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  32. ↑ "AWE USA 2021 - Jonathan Waldern". Augmented World Expo. https://www.awexr.com/usa-2021/speakers/2883-jonathan-waldern. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
  33. ↑ "Virtuality Gave Us '90s VR - Now Its Legacy Is Being Celebrated In Its Home City Of Leicester". Time Extension. 2024-04-30. https://www.timeextension.com/features/virtuality-gave-us-90s-vr-now-its-legacy-is-being-celebrated-in-its-home-city-of-leicester. Retrieved 2026-09-20.
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