Overview
- Snap confirmed on Thursday that it has acquired Illumix, a spatial-AR startup, and said it will fold the company’s technology and most of its staff into its Specs smartglasses unit.
- The company did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, but said it will adopt Illumix’s platform to speed development of real-world AR features for its glasses.
- Investors reacted positively to the announcement with Snap’s stock rising roughly 7.6% during the trading session on June 4.
- Snap created Specs Inc. as a standalone unit in January and has said it will offer more details about the glasses at the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach on June 16.
- Illumix, founded in 2017, brings spatial mapping and AI that blends digital content into physical spaces and the deal comes as Snap points to stronger Q1 results and faces activist pressure from Irenic Capital that could push for structural changes including a hardware spin-off.