(From left) Snap Inc. co-Founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy.
Santa Monica-based Snap Inc. paid $166 million to acquire AI Factory Inc., a San Francisco-based startup that develops augmented reality (AR) software.
A Snap spokesperson confirmed the sale, which was finalized Dec. 26, according to industry tracking database Pitchbook Data Inc.
The acquisition was likely made to advance Snap’s AR business, which it incorporates into both its flagship Snapchat photo-sharing application and its Spectacles eyeglasses.
Spectacles are the only hardware Snap offers. According to recent executive comments, the glasses are considered crucial to the company’s larger mission of becoming profitable and being a leading developer of AR and computer vision capabilities.
“Looking out over the long term, the next seven to 10 years, we will work toward realizing our vision of computing overlaid on the world through wearable augmented reality,” Snap Chief Executive Evan Spiegel said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call in October.
Snap recently launched a technology called Cameos, a feature in the Snapchat app that lets users animate pictures of their faces in looped videos.
AI Factory co-founder and Chief Executive Victor Shaburov served as Snap’s director of engineering from 2015 to 2018. He joined Snap when Looksery Inc., a company Shaburov founded to develop facial recognition and augmentation software, was acquired by Snap in 2015 for an undisclosed sum.
Shaburov concentrated on advancing Snap’s Lenses and other AR programming efforts before leaving to start AI Factory.
Snap posted annual revenue of $1.18 billion and reported a net loss of $1.25 billion for fiscal year 2018.
Tech reporter Samson Amore can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 556-8335. Follow him on Twitter @samsonamore.
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