Snap Inc, the company behind the ever popular Snapchat, plans to raise $1 billion in short-term debt to further develop the content, gaming, and AR features of its platform.

Reuters reports that Snap Inc, now publicly traded since 2017, plans to raise $1 billion in short-term debt by offering convertible senior notes that will mature in 2026, to be paid back in cash, stock, or a combination of both.

“We will continue to focus on developing our content, gaming, and augmented reality platforms to enhance the Snapchat experience for our community,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said in a memo obtained by Reuters.

For now Snapchat’s AR functionality has been mostly limited to face filters, but the company has shown a willingness to experiment with wearables; in 2016 the company launched Spectacles, camera-equipped sunglasses which allow users to shoot photos from a first person perspective.

Coupled with its expanding smartphone-AR offering, which now includes ‘World Lenses’ which place AR content into the world instead of just on faces, Snapchat looks to be positioning itself to make the leap to the first viable consumer head-worn AR headset, if not aspiring to make such a device itself.

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Facebook is in a similar position as it has software offerings which largely match those of Snapchat, however, Facebook has not hidden the fact that it’s definitely doing R&D in the AR hardware space.

Meanwhile, Apple certainly has something up their sleeves, while Google seems to not to be bullish on the AR hardware front but is letting the tech gestate by supporting smartphone AR features in the meantime.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Truth

    I’m excited to see Snap moving beyond facial filters. Though I am still hopefully that with AR eye-ware we will see a mustache-filled world.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAEAbqrE5Zw

  • Rosko

    Had to double take that’s 1 billion not 1 million. wow.

    • jag22

      Raising 1 million dollars is a seed round. At a company like Snap a million dollars probably pays for about two or three engineering FTEs for a year with salary and benefits.

  • Bumpy

    Their camera glasses idea bombed so I guess they had to beg for funds to try again.

    • Hillshift

      It’s convertible debt, basically collateralized by the stock’s market cap…no begging required