If You Thought Revo-Round Was Wacky, Get This: They Just Raised $69 Million

I’m going to assume you’ve read this story on our sister site CrunchGear today: Revo-Round: Bravely Saving China From the Square-Eye Menace – if you haven’t, make sure you don’t miss it (and everything else on the site).

Here’s the gist: a Chinese company called Revo Round is developing a special computer called Round-Revo that boasts a round screen and keyboard.

Why such an unorthodox shape, you ask?

Well, this is to “preserve the characteristic proud Asian look for future generations to come” and battle the destruction of “the characteristic appearances of one of the oldest civilizations in the world”, of course.

WTF, right?

Well, here’s another shocker: a group of Silicon Valley investors has just pumped €50 million (roughly $69 million) into the venture.

Disclaimer: if this turns out to be an extremely elaborate April Fools joke arriving a bit late (or early), apologies on beforehand.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around this – the subtitle of its Product page reads “THE ROUND-REVO – BECAUSE EVOLUTION CAN BE REVERSIBLE” – but I’m just going to copy-paste this excerpt from the site so you can help me and the rest of the crew here at AOLCrunch figure this one out:

If we let evolution take its course it threatens to destroy the characteristic appearances of one of the oldest civilizations in the world. Recent research at the Medical Faculty of the University of Shanghai shows that the population of the People’s Republic of China will get more Western facial expression within three generations.

That is the conclusion of Professor Zhou Hongan. Measurements done in research at around 150 000 Chinese babies in the last twenty years has shown that the position of the eyes relative to the whole face has changed.

It seems that the Asian glance will disappear as it takes on more and more Western features. Although the changes are minor and hard to detect, the rate of change of the face is to such an extent that an evolutionary development can be identified.

As the reason for the physical change the University of Shanghai notes the frequent use of computer screens. 87.4% of the people in the China has access to a computer while sales of “tangible” newspaper and magazine are painfully stagnant. In the major metropolitan areas in China there is also an exceptionally high percentage of e-zine readers. More and more city dwellers prefer the digital newspaper to the paper version.

With the €50,000,000 investment, the group of investors from Silicon Valley has taken a 25% share in the Chinese company, which plans to introduce the new hardware before year’s end.

According to the Revo Round site, the company was initially founded and privately funded by Professor Zhou Hongan, two computer science students and two ophthalmologists.

A consortium of Chinese investors later took a 15% interest and the group of (unnamed) Silicon Valley investors led by a Dutchman named Roeland Reinders has now purchased a 25% stake for a small fortune.

What a phenomenal story. I can’t wait to read what you think about all this.