Other similar devices (Hololens, Oculus Rift, Google Glass, etc.) have had similar costs. Remember that not all of the costs are hardware design or even production, they need to build a developer ecosystem, software, do marketing, etc. The costs involved in bringing a new hardware device in a new category to market are much higher than a CRUD web app... CastAR raised "only" $15M, which is enough for some software startups to operate for years, and crashed and burned.