Tactical Haptics gets a grip on NSF grant to bring touch feedback to VR

Tactical Haptics has won a federal National Science Foundation grant to develop touch-feedback systems that deliver a realistic sense of touch in virtual reality.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has received a NSF Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II grant of $749,000, and it has also closed a $1.47 million seed round, for a combined total of $2.2 million in funding. The company’s seed round was led by SV Tech Ventures and the Youku Global Media Fund (a joint venture between CRCM VC and Youku Tudou), with participation from the SIG China investment fund, Sand Hill Angels, and the Stanford-StartX fund.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.