Snap buys another company to make AR shopping a reality
Snap is making a big bet on AR shopping.
The parent company of Snapchat has bought Vertebrae, a company that lets brands create and manage 3D versions of their goods. Vertebrae’s 50-person team will keep developing the platform for existing and new clients, according to a Snap spokesperson. The idea is that a company can easily upload visuals and other information about an item into Vertebrae and have a 3D version made for shoppers to access, and potentially buy directly, within Snapchat.
When you piece together Vertebrae with Snap’s other shopping-related acquisitions and features, including Fit Analytics and Screenshop, it’s easier to get a sense of its ambitions to be a shopping destination. For brands, the company is setting up a self-service system to easily upload and manage AR versions of their goods that people can discover in Snapchat. For Snapchat users, imagine being able to scan just about anything in the real world and turn it into a virtual object that you can manipulate, resize, and then buy without leaving the app.
See the full story here: https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/19/22583827/snap-vertebrae-snapchat-ar-shopping-startup-3d-assets
