Snapchat parent Snap has acquired Illumix, an augmented reality software company behind Five Nights at Freddy’s AR: Special Delivery (2019), an AR adaptation of the popular horror franchise. The acquisition goes far beyond developing games for Snap’s upcoming AR glasses though.
As first reported by Variety, Snap has acquired Bay Area-based Illumix for an unspecific amount, something that’s slated to boost the company’s AR glasses efforts—and not by stocking the next-gen pair of Snap Spectacles with AR games.
Founded in 2017, Illumix is building a perception layer for phones, AR glasses, and robots that essentially lets software understand and interact with the physical world.
As noted by Variety, Snap is primarily interested in Illumix’s work in scaling that mapping technology and building it out for real-world experiences. Notably, Snap is slated to adopt Illumix’s technology and platform, and retain most of Illumix’s staff.
Illumix’s proprietary spatial mapping and AR platform is “designed to make AR experiences work reliably in […] real-world environments—persistent, context-aware, and anchored to the spaces around us,” Illumix CEO Kirin Sinha says.
“That work has powered AR experiences across real-world venues, spanning location-based entertainment, enterprise, and gaming. This acquisition is a major milestone for Illumix and a powerful next chapter for the technology, platform, customers, partners, and team we’ve built,” Sinha continues. “Snap’s bold vision for AR and AI strongly aligns with what we have always believed: that the future of computing will be more immersive, more intuitive, and ultimately more human.”
The acquisition follows recent layoffs at Snap, which notably didn’t affect Specs Inc., its recently formed AR glasses subsidiary. They did however affect 1,000 team members, including 16% of Snap’s full-time employees, and came alongside a closure of more than 300 open roles—something Snap CEO Evan Spiegel described as a part of the company’s “crucible moment.”
While Snap hasn’t shown off its next-gen AR glasses yet, we’re hoping to learn more at Augmented World Expo (AWE) later this month, which takes place in Long Beach, California on June 16th. There, Spiegel is set to deliver a keynote titled ‘Making Computing More Human‘.
