A few days back, we reported that the UK-based Augmented Reality(AR) startup, Blippar had fallen into administration a couple of weeks back just before Christmas. Consequently, the UK court appointed Paul Appleton and Paul Cooper, of David Rubin and Partners as administrators.
For the uninitiated, the joint administrators act as agents of the company and without any personal liability. In this case, both the administrators are authorised to act as Insolvency Practitioners in the UK by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).
Intellectual property belongs to Candy Ventures!
Going by the latest report, the intellectual property of Blippar has been acquired by one of its investors — Candy Ventures. In addition to the intellectual property, the firm will be hiring a number of former key Blippar team members” to launch a new business soon.
New business under the same banner!
The new business will be run by the co-founder and CEO of Blippar, Ambarish Mitra under the same banner – Blippar. From now, the company will be focusing on developing a SaaS Augmented Reality creation and publishing platform (Blippbuilder) aimed at everyone.
“We will bring together all of the invaluable R&D, technology capabilities, and key learnings gained from the past eight years and invest this in what we believe to be our most powerful asset and most sustainable revenue stream,” added Ambarish Mitra.
From unicorn to near-death!
Founded by Ambarish Mitra along with Jessica Butcher, Omar Tayeb, and Steve Spencer, the startup once claimed to be one of the UK’s few unicorns, but unfortunately struggled a lot to monetise its product and retain user base.
Since 2011, Blippar has been pushing the boundaries in AR and has helped thousands of brands, and agencies use AR/AI to deepen customer engagement, and increase sales. Blippar’s technology has been used by world-leading brands such as PepsiCo, Porsche, NestlĂ©, L’OrĂ©al, GSK, General Mills and Procter & Gamble.
Resurrected from the dead!
The company raised around $150m (ÂŁ120m) from investors and was reportedly valued at more than $1bn at one point in time. Determined to steer the growth of the AR industry, Blippar acquired Layar, a pioneering AR company for ÂŁ4m in cash to incorporate their technology into Blippar.
“The augmented reality market is growing exponentially, and Blippar was an early innovator and leader in this space,” a Candy Ventures spokesperson said. “Rish and the team built a great business, which had to adapt to the challenges of a constantly evolving industry. With the right application of its powerful AR technology, there is huge potential for the new company to drive innovation in AR and position itself at the forefront of the industry.”
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