Snapchat Explores The Augmented-Reality Scene Further With Its First Acquisition In Israel: An AR Firm Under The Name Of Cimagine Media.
Snapchat has been reported to have purchased Israeli augmented reality company Cimagine Media, marking its first acquisition in the Middle East country, and a sign that Snapchat is exploring more of the AR scene. Snapchat parent Snap bought Cimagine for approximately $30 - $40 million.
Cimagine, an AR startup founded in 2012, helps retailers and consumers envision where products will be shown. An example on the company's website includes Coca-Cola, which shows how a Coca-Cola dispenser would appear when delivered in imagination. In particular, it has developed True Marketless Augmented Reality, which let users to virtually position furniture and appliances they would want to buy in the space of their houses via their mobile devices.
Besides Coca-Cola, Cimagine already has partnerships with Shop Direct and John Lewis. The Israel-based firm will become Snapchat's research and development center in the said country, and is forecasted to rapidly expand its workforce from its current 20 employees. It was reported that rather than the technology, Cimagine’s highly-skilled team is the main reason why the popular messaging app purchased the startup.
The acquisition also comes with some of Cimagine’s top talent, including the four founders of the company: Ozi Egri, Amiram Avraham, Nir Daube and CEO Yoni Nevo. The quartet focuses in computer vision and image processing.
While Snapchat has not drop any official statement on the acquisition, it is speculated that the company will use the AR platform to improve its online campaign. Last summer, Snapchat partnered with Starbucks for Snapchat chilled drinks, allowing drinkers to put a lens over their drink and send that photo to their friends.
This is not the first acquisition Snapchat has made. Previously, it bought an ad-tech company called Flite which is based in San Fransisco, a mobile search app called Vurb, computer vision firm Seene, and Bitstrips—which creates personalized emojis dubbed as bitmojis. Snapchat was reported to have spent $100 million on that acquisition.
Snapchat dipped further into the world of AR this year, which unique filters that showed up in photos, hauling in digital rain, snow and funny faces on users.
With Venice, California-based Snapchat anticipated to possibly go public in March 2017 with a valuation roughly at $25 million, it’s likely that doing facilitating shopping through the app may open doors for new and additional revenue opportunities.