Facebook has officially closed its $2 billion acquisition of virtual reality startup Oculus VR. Of the acquisition price, $400 million will be in cash while the rest will be in Facebook shares.
Oculus VR will continue operations as a separate company, but will gain access to funding and support from Facebook.
"We're looking forward to an exciting future together, building the next computing platform and reimagining the way people communicate," said the two companies in a statement.
Facebook announced the acquisition deal in late March of this year, which was the first time that the company purchased a company that specializes in hardware.
Facebook then revealed plans to utilize the Oculus Rift, the company's virtual reality headset, not just for video games but for broader applications that include social and entertainment purposes.
The Oculus Rift allows users to look around a realistic 3D environment using a form of technology that was first brought to life in the 1990s. However, due to the technological limits of the headsets and displays in the past, development on virtual reality faded over time.
Oculus VR began as a startup that released a Kickstarter page to collect funding for the Oculus Rift, which raised an amount of $2.4 million.
However, when news broke out about Facebook's acquisition of Oculus VR, early supporters of the company lashed out and accused the company of "selling out."
Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus VR, then defended the company's decision, saying that the acquisition of Facebook will help push the development of virtual reality as it "accelerates our vision, allows us to execute on some of our most creative ideas, and take risks that were otherwise impossible."
Oculus VR had already raised $90 million in funding investments prior to being acquired by Facebook, but the company felt that it needed much more capital to mass-produce the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
Upon Facebook's announcement of its acquisition of Oculus VR, the price of its shares plunged by 7 percent, showing the discomfort that investors have on the deal.
"Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. For the past few years, this has mostly meant building mobile apps that help you share with the people you care about," said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg regarding the acquisition.
"We have a lot more to do on mobile, but at this point we feel we're in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences."
