Virtual reality (VR) specialist Oculus VR was purchased by social networking giant Facebook for some $2 billion USD last year. This enabled the company, which had previously been relying on funds from both investments and a hugely successful Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign, to go on a massive recruitment charge to help create its Oculus Rift head-mounted display (HMD). As such, a team that then consisted of around 60 to 70 people now holds over 360 employees, it’s been revealed.
Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe revealed as much to the Fast Company earlier in 2015. “We have supercharged recruiting,” Iribe told the site. “We were 60 or 70 people when we got acquired. And we’re 360-plus today. It’s just incredible how fast we’ve been able to grow.” Keep in mind that this is from an article published this week but the interview itself was hosted just after Oculus VR’s pre-E3 press conference in June 2015. With that in mind, this number is likely to be even bigger by now.
Some of Oculus VR’s key hires over the past year include Jason Rubin, the founder of Naughty Dog that now serves as Oculus VR’s Head of Worldwide Studios bringing new titles to the Oculus Rift, and Google X’s Mary Lou Jepsen. Bringing people like this on board has allowed the company to improve its work on both hardware and software for the Oculus Rift as well as launch entirely new teams such as the long term VR research group, Oculus Research, and a new team entirely dedicated to VR filmmaking in Oculus Story Studio.
For now, Oculus VR is concentrating on the launch of the Oculus Rift itself in Q1 2016 though a specific release date and price are yet to be revealed. VRFocus will continue to follow the kit closely, reporting back with the latest updates on its progress.
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