Magic Leap is a mysterious MR startup with a high price valuation. The company is currently acquiring Dacuda, a computer vision software company. Although it is unclear whether it is an overall acquisition, at least it is acquiring part of its technology.
According to a hidden blog post by Dacuda, the company is stripping its 3D scanning assets and refocusing on other projects. The content of the blog post is roughly "Dacuda is reintegrating its product line into their famous production solutions. Dacuda has 8 years of successful performance in B2B solutions, including the world's first scanner mouse and the fastest in the world. Mobile ID reader."
We looked at several LinkedIn profiles of Dacuda employees and found that they are now employees of Magic Leap, including former Dacuda finance director Sven Johner, senior software engineering manager Martin Zahnert, senior software engineer Quim Sanchez and Benjamin Langmann, and software engineer Daniel Donatsch With João Faro, Executive Charizze W.
A person familiar with the matter confirmed that the personnel changes mentioned above were part of the acquisition rather than the group’s departure from Dacuda and that Magic Leap was the acquirer.
Magic Leap is a great bet for the XR world. Although it only showed a few video demos of mixed reality, there was hardly any product information disclosed outside of it. But even so, the company has already received a huge investment of US$1.3 billion, including a US$500 million investment from Google. However, there were reports earlier that the company used special effects to forge videos, its hardware products were far from the consumer level, and recently it was also revealed a slightly bulky "device prototype photo."
Although Magic Leap's negative news continues, those who have experienced it personally still praise the startup. Although we know nothing about Magic Leap's products, we know at least that Dacuda's technology is feasible because we see practical results.
We can infer how Dacuda's technology can be used in Magic Leap's plan. Dacuda uses the SLAM scanning software and a sensor fusion technology to achieve inner-to-outside, 6-DOF, room-scale tracking. We have already seen this technology applied to an unmodified iPhone, which means that any device can achieve room-scale tracking as long as it has the necessary internal sensors and software required for installation.
Currently, Magic Leap has not formally announced the acquisition of Dacuda, so we are not aware of any terms or conditions, including the price. It is also unclear whether there are other Dacuda assets and employees included in Magic Leap, Baidu VR hopes to learn more in the next few days or weeks.