TikTok parent company ByteDance seems to be looking to one-up Facebook anywhere it can. After taking over the mantle of most-downloaded social media app in the world with TikTok, ByteDance is coming for Facebook’s moonshot, buying up its own virtual reality headset maker called Pico.
The deal first reported on by Bloomberg last week was confirmed by the company on Monday, though ByteDance didn’t disclose a price tag for the deal. Pico had raised some $62 million in venture funding from Chinese firms, including a $37 million Series B in March. Like Oculus, they create both hardware and software for their VR devices. Unlike Oculus, they have a substantial presence in China. Pico may not hold the same name recognition as Oculus or HTC, but the company is a top VR hardware maker, selling to consumer audiences in China and enterprise customers in the Western world.
Facebook Reality lab's Oculust Quest 2 has been the highest selling #virtualreality headset so far & #facebook has priced their VR headset very low as they are in the position to take a hit, facebooks vision is clearly to be the leaders in the space and pricing it so low drowns the competing brands.
#picovr has been the only other brand thats been building enterprise ready virtual reality headsets & #tiktok buying PicoVR shows that ByteDance is indeed interested in building out a consumer VR brand and is aiming to follow in Facebook’s footsteps closely while learning from their missteps and capitalizing on their contributions to the ecosystem.
#bytedance is not focusing only on VR, but also on #augmentedreality. Recently it has announced that it is building TikTok Effect Studio, a suite to let content creators develop AR filters to be used inside TikTok.
Wish this acquisition creates an open #extendedreality market and benefits the entire ecosystem