Acquisitions

Apple acquires education startup LearnSprout

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Apple has acquired education-technology startup LearnSprout, reports Bloomberg. The outlet has received confirmation of the buyout with the boilerplate statement, "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Terms of the deal are not known at this time, but we do know that the San Francisco-based LearnSprout has raised more than $4 million from investors. The company specializes in education tracking and analytical software, which it has rolled out to more than 2,500 US schools.

Apple buys motion capture firm Faceshift

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 25, 2015

Apple has acquired a Zürich, Germany-based startup FaceShift which provides a proprietary technology for real-time motion capture that was used in the latest Star Wars film and in production of a number of high-profile video games. Apple has officially confirmed the deal in a prepared statement to TechCrunch.

Speculation is rife as to how Apple might be taking advantage of such a sophisticated motion capture technology in its own products, including potentially using it to power real-time avatars for FaceTime video chats.

Google acquires iPhone app-maker Fly Labs for its Photos team

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 19, 2018

Fly Labs, the maker of popular photo and video editing apps for iOS, announced on Friday that it's been acquired by Google. The company's software library includes apps like Clips, Tempo, Crop, and Fly, which made Apple's 'Best of the App Store' list in 2014.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but we do know that the folks at Fly Labs will be joining the Google Photos team and plan on pulling their apps from the App Store in 3 months. As a peace offering, they have made all of their apps free with no IAPs until then.

Activision Blizzard is buying Candy Crush Saga maker King Digital for $5.9 billion

Christian Zibreg ∙ November 3, 2015

Renowned games publisher Activision Blizzard is purchasing King Digital, the maker of the popular Candy Crush Saga videogame series, in a transaction valued at a whooping $5.9 billion, the two companies announced Tuesday.

Activision, best-known for the World of Warcraft, Diablo and Call of Duty videogame series, said ABS Partners, a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, will acquire all of the outstanding shares of King for $18 in cash per share, for a total equity value of $5.9 billion.

Apple acquires AI startup Perceptio

Cody Lee ∙ October 5, 2015

Following news last week that Apple acquired UK-based voice technology startup VocalIQ, Bloomberg reports that the company has also recently picked up AI startup Perceptio. A spokesman for Apple has confirmed the buyout with the usual boilerplate statement of “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

Apple acquires UK-based voice technology startup VocalIQ

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 19, 2018

Apple has acquired UK-based voice technology startup VocalIQ, according to a report from the Financial Times. A spokesman for the Cupertino company has confirmed the buyout with the usual boilerplate statement of "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Apple acquires mapping visualization startup Mapsense

Cody Lee ∙ Updated May 17, 2016

Apple has acquired Mapsense, a San Francisco-based startup that specializes in tools for analyzing and visualizing location data, Recode reports. A spokesperson confirmed the buyout, saying "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

The deal is said to be worth anywhere between $25 million and $30 million, and it includes Mapsense's 12-person team and technology. That tech includes a cloud-based tool that allows users to manipulate graphical models of maps that hold huge sums of data, and a recently launched platform for developers.

Apple believed to have acquired motion capture firm Faceshift

Cody Lee ∙ September 4, 2015

Apple may have bought Swiss real-time motion capture firm Faceshift in recent weeks, reports MacRumors. The site points to a company registry filing that shows all three of their original corporate directors stepped down in mid-August, and were replaced by a mergers and acquisitions attorney from Baker & McKenzie—a firm Apple frequently uses.

Faceshift has some interesting technology that can quickly and accurately capture facial expressions using 3D sensors. They've worked with both game and animation studios, and even built their own software. More recently, the company has been working on a Skype plugin that allows users to transform into avatar characters during real-time video chats.

Adidas buys fitness app maker Runtastic for $239 million

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Runtastic has been acquired by sportswear giant Adidas, the company's CEO and co-founder Florian Gschwandtner announced in a blog post on Wednesday. The deal is said to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 220 million euros (or $239 million).

For those unfamiliar with Runtastic, it develops and maintains a number of fitness apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry. It has also dabbled in hardware with a GPS watch, a heart rate monitor, and the recently-released Orbit fitness tracker.

Apple acquires augmented reality firm Metaio

Cody Lee ∙ May 28, 2015

Apple has acquired augmented reality startup Metaio, according to a recently surfaced legal document. A spokesperson for Apple confirmed the purchase to TechCrunch, saying "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

The filing claims that shares of Metaio were transferred over to the Cupertino firm between May 21st and 22nd, so it seems the acquisition was completed fairly recently. The company, which was essentially an offshoot of an AR project at German automaker Volkswagen, was founded in 2003.

Apple acquires GPS firm Coherent Navigation

Cody Lee ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

Apple appears to have quietly acquired San Francisco-based GPS firm Coherent Navigation, MacRumors reported on Sunday. Several of the company's employees, including the CEO and co-founders, all started working for the iPhone-maker in recent months, and its domain servers were recently updated to point to Apple.

Among Coherent's technology is something called High Integrity GPS, which offers greater accuracy and precision and higher signal integrity versus standard GPS. It accomplishes this by combining signals from both mid-earth orbiting GPS satellites low-earth satellites used by data provider Iridium for voice and data.

Apple quietly purchased Dryft keyboard app last year

Cody Lee ∙ Updated June 11, 2018

Apple quietly purchased Dryft, a startup that develops keyboard apps, according to a new report from TechCrunch. The site says that the acquisition happened sometime last year, but the financial terms of the deal are still not known.

Dryft, who TechCrunch notes was a finalist in its 2013 Disrupt startup battlefield competition, gained notoriety for its custom mobile keyboard that would only appear when the user placed their fingers on their device's display.