As much of the world was welcoming Santa Claus down their chimneys, news emerged this week that Snap, the company behind perennially popular social network Snapchat, had acquired augmented reality (AR) startup Cimagine Media for “up to” $40 million.
Founded in 2012, Cimagine works on computer vision and real-time image-processing technologies, which is entirely in line with Snap’s mission to be a “camera company” that pushes far beyond its ephemeral photo-sharing roots into myriad other areas, including augmented reality and physical cameras.
Indeed, Snapchat (the company) rebranded as Snap in September and launched its first piece of hardware — a pair of $130 connected glasses, called Spectacles.
But perhaps more notable this year was the bumper funding round that has enabled the Venice, California-based startup to lay the foundation for its anticipated initial public offering (IPO) sometime next year.
High five
In May, Snap raised a whopping $1.8 billion, which sent the company’s total funding since its inception in 2011 flying past the $2.5 billion mark. Ahead of that Series F round, Snap bought Bitstrips, a Canadian company that makes personalized emojis known as bitmojis, and a few months later Snapchat introduced bitmojis into its own service.
But the gargantuan $1.8 billion war chest evidently made it possible for Snap to double down on its efforts to bolster its technological prowess — in 2016, the company made five known acquisitions, more than double the tally for its entire…