Magic Leap announced Friday it had received a fresh funding round from Japan’s largest cellphone service provider, while stating that its costs remain considerable.

The Plantation-based company makes an augmented reality software and hardware device that allows graphics to seemingly interact with the real world when wearing a special headset and goggles.

The company said it had raised $280 million from Tokyo-based NTT Docomo Inc., in a partnership agreement that would allow NTT customers to experience the technology. Last year, Magic Leap announced that AT&T had signed on as an investor and partner.

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NTT has approximately 70 million subscribers.

“Like AT&T, DOCOMO will co-develop locally relevant consumer and enterprise apps, a significant competitive maneuver to define the next computing era,” a Magic Leap spokeswoman said in an email. “Nobody else is taking this strategy.”

“The partnership between Magic Leap and DOCOMO is an expansion of our telecommunications partner strategy, designed to grow the global footprint of our spatial computing technology,” Magic Leap said in a statement.

In an interview with The New York Times, Magic Leap founder and CEO Rony Abovitz said Magic Leap’s research and development spending necessitated the new funds.

He also said Magic Leap had reopened its latest funding round, which had already netted them close to $1 billion. In total, Magic Leap has now raised more than $2.5 billion.

“The R&D investments are substantial, but so is the upside,” Abovitz said.