Magic Leap was founded by Rony Abovitz in 2010. In October 2014, when the company was still operating in stealth mode (but already reported to be working on projects relating to augmented reality and computer vision), it raised more than $540 million of venture funding from Google, Qualcomm, Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, among other investors. On December 9, 2015, Forbes reported on documents filed in the state of Delaware, indicating a Series C funding round of $827m. This funding round could bring the company's total funding to $1.4 billion, and its post-money valuation to $3.7 billion. On February 2, 2016, Financial Times reported that Magic Leap further raised another funding round of close to $800m, valuing the startup at $4.5 billion
On July 1, 2018, the device was finally demoed, the general reaction was of disappointment with what was shown, based on what had been promised up to that point.
On May 28, 2020, Rony Abovitz announced that Magic Leap had raised $350 million in new funding and that he would be stepping down as CEO. In September 2020, The Information reported that the company valuation was $6.4 billion in 2019 and by June 2020 it dropped to $450 million, by 93 percent in six months. In October 2021, Magic Leap's CEO announced Magic Leap 2 would be the "industry’s smallest and lightest device" for business uses, with a significantly larger field of view, and include a dimming feature to be used in brightly lit settings. On September 30th, 2022, Magic Leap officially released its latest AR Headset, the Magic Leap 2.