Blippar

Last updated

Blippar
Industry Augmented reality
Founded2011
Founders
Headquarters London
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Preet Prasannan (CEO)
ProductsAugmented reality, content creation, design studio
Website www.blippar.com

Blippar, which was one of the UK's first tech unicorns, specialises in augmented reality (AR) content creation and publishing to smartphones and the web.

Contents

Blippar's product offerings include in-house bespoke AR content creation, with a focus on mobile and WebAR, and a proprietary content creation and publishing platform, Blippbuilder, that enables users to create and publish AR content themselves. The company has its main offices in London.

Blippar has created AR campaigns for partners that include GSK, Porsche, Jaguar Land Rover, PepsiCo, Cadbury, L’Oréal, and Procter & Gamble. These campaigns have also included the world's first AR product launch, delivered in partnership with OnePlus Nord. [2]

History

2011–2018: founding and financial history

Blippar was founded in 2011 by Ambarish Mitra, Omar Tayeb and Steve Spencer, after a discussion about the possibility of Queen Elizabeth II ‘coming to life’ from a twenty pound note.

At its launch on Android and iOS in August 2011, Blippar teamed up with Cadbury, to invite chocolate fans to play an AR game triggered by its packaging.

From then, Blippar has worked with various brands and campaigns. In 2014 it launched a new platform for Google Glass, [3] enabling developers to create AR games using a person's eyes to control gameplay. [4]

In 2015, Blippar launched an R&D lab to explore “innovative use cases” – not just for AR, but also for virtual reality [5] (VR).

By the time of its $54 million Series D round of funding in early 2016, [6] Blippar had been doubling down on its broader machine learning and AI efforts, with 60 engineers in its San Francisco and Mountain View offices, and 300 employees spread across 14 offices globally.

Although Blippar was one of AR's early pioneers, it was ahead of its time when it was founded in 2011 and the company was placed into administration in December 2018.

2019–present: financial recovery

Blippar was bought out of administration in early 2019, when it sold its IP assets to an investment firm headed by Nick Candy. [7] At the same time, the company appointed Faisal Galaria as CEO. [8]

In 2021, Blippar secured a $5 million (approx €3.6 million) funding in a pre-Series A round, co-led by Chroma Ventures, the investment arm of Paddy Burns’ and Chris van der Kuyl's gaming company 4J Studios, and West Coast Capital; the private equity arm of Scottish entrepreneur Sir Tom Hunter and family. Canadian entrepreneur Anthony Lacavera also contributed to the round through his Globalive Capital investment firm.

Awards and recognition

Blippar has been ranked in CNBC’s global ‘Disruptor 50’ list, [9] as well as being named top Business Innovator by Bloomberg, [10] and most innovative AR company by Fast Company in 2018. [11] Blippar has won awards including best AR app at Mobile World Congress in 2017. [12] The company was also shortlisted for the Most Effective Use of VR and AR at The Drum Awards for Digital Industries in 2020 for its work with OnePlus. [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Augmented reality</span> View of the real world with computer-generated supplementary features

Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be defined as a system that incorporates three basic features: a combination of real and virtual worlds, real-time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects. The overlaid sensory information can be constructive, or destructive. This experience is seamlessly interwoven with the physical world such that it is perceived as an immersive aspect of the real environment. In this way, augmented reality alters one's ongoing perception of a real-world environment, whereas virtual reality completely replaces the user's real-world environment with a simulated one.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTC</span> Taiwanese electronics company

HTC Corporation or High Tech Computer Corporation, is a Taiwanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Xindian District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. Founded in 1997, HTC began as an original design manufacturer and original equipment manufacturer, designing and manufacturing laptop computers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unity (game engine)</span> Cross-platform video game and simulation engine

Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a variety of desktop, mobile, console and virtual reality platforms. It is particularly popular for iOS and Android mobile game development, is considered easy to use for beginner developers, and is popular for indie game development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wikitude</span> Austrian mobile augmented reality technology provider

Wikitude is a mobile augmented reality (AR) technology provider based in Salzburg, Austria. Founded in 2008, Wikitude initially focused on providing location-based augmented reality experiences through the Wikitude World Browser App. In 2012, the company restructured it's proposition by launching the Wikitude SDK, a development framework utilizing image recognition and tracking, and geolocation technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sketchfab</span> 3D modeling platform website

Sketchfab is a 3D modeling platform website to publish, share, discover, buy and sell 3D, VR and AR content. It provides a viewer based on the WebGL and WebXR technologies that allows users to display 3D models on the web, to be viewed on any mobile browser, desktop browser or Virtual Reality headset.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niantic, Inc.</span> Mobile app and video game development company

Niantic, Inc. is an American software development company based in San Francisco. Niantic is best known for developing the augmented reality mobile games Ingress and Pokémon Go. The company was formed as Niantic Labs in 2010 as an internal startup within Google. The company became an independent entity in October 2015 when Google restructured under Alphabet Inc. Niantic has additional offices in Bellevue and Los Angeles.

zSpace (company) Technology firm based in San Jose, California

zSpace is a technology firm based in San Jose, California that combines elements of virtual and augmented reality in a computer. zSpace mostly provides AR/VR technology to the education market. It allows teachers and learners to interact with simulated objects in virtual environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reality Labs</span> Virtual and augmented reality products company

Reality Labs is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon Worlds. In June 2022, several artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives that were previously a part of Meta AI were transitioned to Reality Labs. This also includes Meta's fundamental AI Research laboratory FAIR which is now part of the Reality Labs - Research (RLR) division.

castAR American technology company

castAR was a Palo Alto-based technology startup company founded in March 2013 by Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson. Its first product was to be the castAR, a pair of augmented reality and virtual reality glasses. castAR was a founding member of the nonprofit Immersive Technology Alliance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magic Leap</span> American augmented reality hardware manufacturer

Magic Leap, Inc. is an American technology company that released a head-mounted virtual retinal display, called Magic Leap One, which superimposes 3D computer-generated imagery over real world objects, by "projecting a digital light field into the user's eye", involving technologies potentially suited to applications in augmented reality and computer vision. It is attempting to construct a light-field chip using silicon photonics.

uSens, Inc. is a Silicon Valley startup founded in 2014 in San Jose, California. The company's core team includes researchers and developers building interactive and immersive computer-vision tracking solutions. The team has extensive experience in artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision, 3D Human–computer interaction (HCI) technology and augmented reality and virtual reality. uSens has been applying computer vision and AI technologies in AR/VR, Automotive and smartphones. 

EON Reality is a multinational virtual reality and augmented reality software developer headquartered in Irvine, California. The company was founded by Dan Lejerskar, Mikael Jacobsson and Mats W. Johansson in 1999. Its clients include Boeing, Microsoft, Lexus and Cornell University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kubity</span> Cloud-based 3D communication tool

Kubity is a cloud-based 3D communication tool that works on desktop computers, the web, smartphones, tablets, augmented reality gear, and virtual reality glasses. Kubity is powered by several proprietary 3D processing engines including "Paragone" and "Etna" that prepare the 3D file for transfer over mobile devices.

Tilt Brush is a room-scale 3D-painting virtual-reality application available from Google, originally developed by Skillman & Hackett.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Within (company)</span> Technology company

Within Unlimited, Inc, or commonly Within, is a studio based in Los Angeles developing the VR fitness service Supernatural on Meta Quest. The company was founded by Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin in 2014 and initially created, acquired, and distributed 360-degree video, AR, and VR experiences across web, mobile, console, and headsets. The company was acquired by Meta Platforms in February 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WayRay</span> Technology company

WayRay is a deep-tech company with offices in Switzerland, United States, China, Hong Kong, and Germany. It develops holographic AR technologies for connected cars. WayRay's in-house R&D center and prototyping facilities create holographic optical systems, complex mechanics, electronics, and software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tenor (website)</span> Search engine

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Mondly is a leading online language learning platform that enables over 100 million learners from 190 countries to learn 41 languages. Launched in 2014, it quickly became a household name in the mobile space, reaching the #1 position in Education in most European countries, LATAM and Asia. Mondly is also a pioneer in VR Education, with its most recent launch on Meta Quest being in the top 10 VR apps worldwide. Starting May 2022, Mondly became a part of Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, and continues its mission to make language learning fun, easy and accessible to everyone.

DEVAR Entertainment LLC is an American technology company headquartered in Marlton, New Jersey, that specializes in the development of augmented reality content and products. The company was founded in 2011 and has branches in Cyprus, United States and Eastern Europe.

References

  1. ↑ Lara O'Reilly (9 June 2016). "AR startup Blippar has launched the visual browser it says could be 'bigger than the internet itself'". Business Insider. Retrieved 14 January 2018.
  2. ↑ Williams, Robert (22 July 2020). "OnePlus hosts 1st all-AR launch event for new smartphone". Marketing Dive. Archived from the original on 27 February 2021.
  3. ↑ Takashi, Dean (29 May 2014). "Blippar launches a platform for augmented reality games on Google Glass". Venturebeat. Archived from the original on 31 May 2014.
  4. ↑ Sawers, Paul (27 October 2015). "Blippar launches R&D lab and expands into virtual reality with an educational Google Cardboard app". Venturebeat. Archived from the original on 28 October 2015.
  5. ↑ Sawers, Paul (18 December 2018). "The rise and fall of augmented reality 'unicorn' Blippar". Venturebeat. Archived from the original on 20 December 2018.
  6. ↑ Crook, Jordan (2 March 2016). "Blippar augmented reality search engine raises $54 million Series D". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2 March 2016.
  7. ↑ Sawers, Paul (23 January 2019). "Blippar to continue as a new augmented reality company after selling IP assets to investment fund". Venturebeat. Archived from the original on 9 September 2019.
  8. ↑ Oakes, Omar (3 July 2020). "'I'm not here to do a quick flip': Blippar's turnaround CEO Faisal Galaria eyes AR boom". Campaign. Archived from the original on 27 July 2020.
  9. ↑ "Blippar 2017 Disruptor 50". CNBC. 16 May 2017. Archived from the original on 17 May 2017.
  10. ↑ "Bloomberg Business Innovators 2016". Bloomberg. 2016. Archived from the original on 29 January 2016.
  11. ↑ "Most Innovative Companies - Blippar". Fast Company. Archived from the original on 19 February 2016.
  12. ↑ "Blippar Wins Best VR/AR App at Global Mobile Awards 2017". Blippar Website. 3 March 2017. Archived from the original on 11 December 2018.
  13. ↑ Lim, Eleanor (23 October 2020). "2020 nominations announced for The Drum Awards for Digital Industries". The Drum. Archived from the original on 31 October 2020.
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