Tech giant Google has reportedly acquired Alter for around $100m in an effort to boost the content game. Alter is an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar startup that aids brands and creators in expressing their virtual identities. The acquisition also overlaps with Google’s plan of competing more aggressively with the short video platform, TikTok.
Avatar, formerly known as ‘Facemoji’, essentially works with AI to create avatars for its social media users. The company started by assisting developers to create avatars for games and apps, later it rebranded as ‘Alter’ in 2020 and started helping businesses and creators generate avatars so as to build an online identity. Proficient in 3D avatar system designs, Alter empowers creators and businesses to create and monetize new experiences.
The acquisition which was concluded approximately two months ago was made public only now as neither of the companies made an announcement until now. Notably, one of Google's spokespersons confirmed the accession but refused to provide details pertaining to the financial terms of the agreement.
With the acquisition, Google is aiming to integrate Alter’s tools to bolster its own arsenal of content, meanwhile providing Alter with new enhanced capabilities. Headquartered in the US and Czech, Alter is an open-source, cross-platform rendering engine that was jointly founded by Jon Slimak and Robin Raszka in 2017, who did not respond to a request for comment put forth by TechCrunch.
The company’s advent marks a progression for web3 interoperability and the open metaverse as it adeptly works with code to modify and develop face recognition technology.
According to the report, a part of Alter’s workforce has updated their new role, announcing that they have joined Google, however, an official public announcement is still pending.
“Alter is an open source, cross-platform [software development kit (SDK)] consisting of a real-time 3D avatar system and motion capture built from scratch for web3 interoperability and the open metaverse. With Alter, developers can easily pipe avatars into their app, game or website,” as per the company’s LinkedIn page.
Furthermore, in regard Google has also enhanced the emoji experience for its rather wide base of users, now offering personalised experience to them with the newly rolled out custom emojis for the web versions of Chat.
