Snap has acquired at least 10 startups since 2014 according to firms tracking such deals, and M&A deal makers say Snap is one of the most active shoppers they have heard from.
“AMAZON PASS”
Snap’s R&D investment as a percentage of revenue is far higher than what Facebook or Twitter were spending before they went public. One result of that investment has been a wave of patent filings – about 46 total, according to research firm CB Insights.
They include eye-wear patents for Spectacles, as well as patents for photo and video-capture devices, and object and facial recognition, which is key to developing augmented reality technology.
One former employee said Snap is working to figure out ways to turn the warehouse of data it collects from Memories, a feature for users to save photos on Snap’s server, into augmented reality or facial recognition applications.
Spectacles “opens the doors for augmented reality,” Elsheshai said. “That’s a different direction for the company than just adding more social media capabilities.”
