Snap has bought up Pixel8earth, a company working on 3D mapping technology, for $7.6 million in a deal that took place last quarter, TechCrunch reported.
The transaction took place at the same time as the $124 million deal Snap undertook to buy Fit Analytics, according to the report.
Pixel8earth is based in Boulder, Colorado, and the new deal will see four of the company’s employees joining Snap to work on map product development, the report stated. They’ll be building out tools that are able to work with Snap’s location-based augmented reality feature, along the lines of the Local Lenses the company introduced in June.
So far, it’s unclear if Snap will keep Pixel8earth going as a company, or if it will instead choose to debut selected technology and further development into the products such as Snap Map, according to the report. But because of the price of the deal, it could be a talent acquisition.
Snap already has traction with its more “personalized” map, TechCrunch reported, with the contrast pronounced from the Google Maps experience where the focus is on accuracy as much as possible, rather than any level of personalization.
Snap said at its February investor day that the Snap Map had been used by over 250 million people monthly, the report stated.
And while some of the growth has been hampered in the past year because of the pandemic’s restrictions, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said last week that the earnings numbers might be improving. He said the company is “optimistic about the engagement trends we are seeing as the world is beginning to open up,” according to TechCrunch.
“As things began to open up in the United States in late February, we saw inflection points in key behaviors like Story posting and engagement with the Map,” he said, per TechCrunch.
Snap has also moved into the fields of connected commerce and social shopping, PYMNTS reported.
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