CastAR will return $1M in Kickstarter money and postpone augmented reality glasses shipments

CastAR is postponing the launch of its augmented reality glasses, but it is also doing something unusual. The startup is returning all of the $1 million in pledged money from its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to its supporters.

The company says it’s the right thing to do, even though it isn’t obligated to return the money. But CastAR still wants the goodwill of its early supporters, and it can do this because it recently raised $15 million in venture money from Playground Global, an investment fund run by Android creator Andy Rubin. CastAR still has ambitions to make a big splash in augmented reality, which tech advisor Digi-Capital forecasts will be a $120 billion market by 2020.