Niantic, which has strengthened its worldwide reputation with Pokémon Go, announced that it had acquired 8th Wall. 8th Wall is a web-based augmented reality (AR) development platform. The platform has many services for developers who create augmented reality content for PC, mobile, AR, VR devices.
After Niantic acquired 8th Wall, which was founded in 2019, 8th Wall will continue to exist as a separate company, and the company’s team will join Niantic’s engineering team. With this acquisition, it is thought that Niantic’s Lightship platform will develop further.
Lightship is an AR developer platform owned by Niantic. By the end of 2021, Lightship was available to all developers. One of the reasons Niantic acquired the 8th Wall is that it wants to strengthen its own AR ecosystem.
8th Wall CEO and Founder Erik Murphy-Chutorian made the following statement after the acquisition:
“There is so much potential for web-based augmented reality, and we will continue to unlock this through the lens of Niantic’s real-world AR universe. We are looking forward to working with Niantic to create the best planet-scale platform technologies to foster even more magical shared experiences.”
Niantic previously acquired social gaming platform Lowkey. Last year, other companies acquired included Hoss, Scaniverse, and Mayhem.
