In a very stealthy way, Google bought Alter, an AI startup specializing in creating avatars using AI. This acquisition is taken as a step by the search engine giant to take the fight to the short video-sharing platform TikTok and has reportedly paid around $100 million for the buyout.
The co-founder of Alter also acknowledged the change by revising his LinkedIn profile. He updated his profile with the comment “creating avatars at Google”. The acquisition is said to have been done two months ago.
Alter began as Facemoji, a platform that provided plug-and-play technology to assist game and app developers to integrate avatar systems into their products. It received $3 million in seed funding from Play Ventures, Roosh Ventures, Twitter, and other investors.
Every other major company like Meta and Snapchat have their full-body avatar platform. With Alter, there is a high possibility that Google will dive into providing avatars to its Youtube shorts platform.
While some of the top executives of Alter have changed their Linkedin profiles, hinting at the buyout without admitting to the acquisition. Google has not made any comment or public announcement but has confirmed the acquisition. No details regarding the financial makeup of the deal have been given out or made public information as of yet.
