By Sam Boughedda
Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google has acquired artificial intelligence avatar startup Alter, for approximately $100 million, according to a report by TechCrunch on Thursday.
TechCrunch said sources informed them of the deal, with Google aiming to boost its content and better compete with platforms such as TikTok.
The acquisition is not recent and is said to have been completed around two months ago, but neither company disclosed it to the public. However, some of Alter’s top executives have shared on their LinkedIn profiles that they have joined Google without mentioning the acquisition.
TechCrunch added that a Google spokesperson confirmed the deal but declined to comment on the financials involved.
Alter, which is headquartered in the U.S. and the Czech Republic, started out as Facemoji, a platform that offered plug-and-play tech to help game and app developers put avatar systems into their apps. It received $3 million in seed funding from investors such as Play Ventures, Roosh Ventures, and Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and later rebranded to Alter.
TechCrunch said its source told them Google will use Alter as a way to improve and boost its content.