TikTok’s Owner Is Taking One Small Step Into the Metaverse

ByteDance, the Chinese firm that owns TikTok, has acquired the digital actuality startup Pico in a deal that marks a serious push by the corporate to diversify its enterprise holdings and maintain tempo with the drive towards the metaverse.

Although ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing, didn’t instantly disclose the dimensions of the deal, the corporate advised CNBC that Pico’s “comprehensive suite of software and hardware technologies, as well as the talent and deep expertise of the team, will support both our entry to the VR space and long-term investment in this emerging field.”

Pico—which ranked because the third-largest digital actuality headset maker globally within the first quarter of 2021—isn’t any small fry within the VR house, and the proposed deal harkens again to Facebook’s 2014 purchase of Oculus for a mix of $400 million in money and 23.1 million Facebook shares. Although Facebook acknowledged on the time that the real-world functions of VR had been nonetheless principally confined to gaming, the platform signaled that it believed within the potential to increase VR “to new verticals, including communications, media and entertainment, education, and other areas.”

“Mobile is the platform of today, and now we’re also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow,” Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, mentioned on the time. “Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play, and communicate.”

In buying Pico, ByteDance might be gearing up for a possible future showdown towards Facebook’s Oculus VR division, and will additionally face competitors from Apple, which purchased the digital actuality firm NextVR final yr.

The announcement of the proposed deal comes lower than per week after TikTok, which ByteDance owns, introduced that it was testing out a brand new augmented actuality studio, which creators may quickly be capable to use to experiment with new in-app options, together with lenses and visible results.

A ByteDance spokesperson advised CNBC that the corporate is “optimistic about the future of VR and its alignment with our mission,” however didn’t instantly reply to request for additional remark.