The deal calls for $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock worth about $1.6 billion. The accord includes another $300 million in cash and stock based on incentives.
"Our mission is to make the world more open and connected," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on his Facebook profile page. "Oculus's mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences."
The head-gear-mounted technology, a hit at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, is the brainchild of Palmer Luckey. He was 21 at the time of CES.
Brendan Iribe is CEO and co-founder.
"We believe virtual reality will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways," Iribe said in a statement. "It is a transformative and disruptive technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and it's only just the beginning."
Oculus is Facebook's second multibillion-dollar purchase this year. In February, it announced plans to acquire messaging app WhatsApp for $19 billion.
Having focused solely on the software side of the industry, Facebook's plunge into a hardware business like Oculus is surprising, says Gartner analyst Brian Blau.
"They've talked about not wanting to be a hardware company," Blau says. "They want to do software and infrastructure, and they're clearly focused on social. Virtual reality isn't any of those things."
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