Snap Quietly Acquires Augmented Reality Startup AI Factory

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Snap Inc. has acquired augmented reality startup AI Factory Inc., the company that helped it develop its recent Cameos feature.

One might think that Snap has been laying low during the last few years, but the reality is quite different. The company has been making strategic moves behind the scenes.

The Santa Monica-based social platform and pioneer of face filters and the Stories format has been steadily growing its teams and acquiring partners to improve its core product and its AR features.

Its most recent acquisition is that of AI Factory – a San Fransisco-based startup that builds AR software – for a reported $166m, just last week on Jan. 4. On a side note, AI Factory is also the company that helped Snap to develop its recent Cameos feature. The details of its exact offering and remain a bit obscure, as its website explains it builds “AR products with focus on image and video recognition, analysis and processing.”

According to sources AI Factory is expected to operate as a subsidiary within the main business organization.

Snapchat acquires AR startup AI Factory for $166M, in a deal sealed over the course of holidays

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According to CrunchBase, AI Factory was founded in 2018 and has had the backing of investors early on. Its team includes a group of “young scientists, coding monsters and creatives eager to make lives better with the help of AI.”

The company’s co-founder and CEO, Victor Shaburov, was actually Snap’s director of engineering for a number of years (2015 to 2018). The first time he joined Snap is when another company he founded – Looksery Inc. – was acquired by Snap.