Blippar Acquires Layar, Creating World's Largest AR Userbase

NEW YORK, NY and LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwired - Jun 18, 2014) - Blippar, the leading mobile image-recognition platform for brands, advertisers and publishers, today announced the acquisition of Layar, a key pioneer in bringing augmented reality (AR) to mobile devices since 2009. With the acquisition, Blippar establishes one of the biggest data footprints for consumer AR use around the world, providing comprehensive insights on user preferences regarding interaction with above-the-line media, product packaging and in-store shopper marketing.

Whilst Layar will be 100 percent owned by Blippar, moving forward, the company will maintain its consumer offering and continue to deliver on its B2B contracts.

Together, the companies:

• Engage with more than 50 million consumers
• Work with over 5,000 brands and publishers and over 100,000 self-publishing partners
• Operate in over 175 countries
  
  

"We started Blippar with the vision of delivering high-quality, engaging, ubiquitous consumer augmented reality through a 'browser' of the physical world," said Ambarish Mitra, co-founder and CEO at Blippar. "In only 33 months we've gone from building prototypes in the living room of my flat to connecting millions of consumers to thousands of brands around the world, making the verb 'to blipp' synonymous with AR experiences. To me, Layar has always demonstrated that it shares this vision of an augmented world. Now working together as one team, we will further define what consumer augmented reality needs to be, and what will be required to deliver it on a global scale as an intuitive daily behavior."

"Blippar and Layar have a shared vision and ambition," commented Quintin Schevernels, Layar CEO. "Both companies have been exploring the market for Augmented Reality very successfully over the past years. Since they are extremely complementary, joining forces creates the undisputed global market leader in its industry. This new combination will further fuel ambitions and has the potential to change the way people interact with the physical world forever."

In acquiring Layar, Blippar expands both its reach and scale, improving its ability to deliver the highest quality AR experiences to the maximum amount of consumers. Blippar will target the entire AR market by combining the R&D capabilities of both businesses, while maintaining the companies' relative target market positions. With its proprietary AR platform for iOS, Android, Windows and BlackBerry devices, Blippar's core strength has been high-end and large brands and publishers, whereas Layar's platform, white label technology and self-publishing tool has targeted the long tail of the market with lower budgets.

The acquisition of Layar follows investments Blippar has made in the wearables space, recently announcing the first fully functioning image-recognition capabilities for Google Glass, along with the first true augmented reality gaming technology for the platform. The company plans to share further details on the acquisition and its product roadmap in Q3 2014.

About Blippar
Blippar™ is the leading image-recognition platform for brands, advertisers, and publishers, instantly bringing physical newspapers, magazines, products, signage and merchandising to life. Utilizing proprietary, best-in-class technology, Blippar™ enables users to unlock the physical world with stunning interactive, digital content experiences and engage with their favorite publications, brands and celebrities via their iOS, Android, or Windows mobile devices. Since launching in the UK in 2011, Blippar™ has expanded rapidly, partnering with some of the biggest and most exciting media owners and brands in the world -- including Condé Nast, TIME Inc., Unilever, Kraft, Nestlé, Heinz, Coca-Cola, Anheuser Busch, Xbox, L'Oréal, Universal Pictures and Jaguar. To learn more, visit blippar.com.

About Layar
Layar was founded in June 2009, and has offices in Amsterdam, New York and Toronto. The company's mission is to provide the highest quality products, tools and services for the augmented reality and interactive print industries. Almost 100,000 marketers and publishers from all over the world are already taking advantage of Layar's platform to make their products interactive.