Skype or Facetime distort a person's image – or simply show the less-than-flattering reality. But with state-of the-art imagery from Looksery, everyone can present the image they want - a slimmer self, different eye color or even a transformation into an animated cartoon character.
The Looksery facial recognition app was an instant download hit when it was launched in Apple’s App Store and Google’s Google Play in October 2014. From launch until September, it racked up 10 million downloads over a range of mobile devices, according to Julie Krasnienko, the marketing and business development head at Looksery.
On Sept. 15, the Odesa-developed Looksery became part of U.S. video messaging application Snapchat. According to the sources of the Ukrainian online tech journal, AIN.UA, Snapchat paid $150 million for Looksery, making the acquisition the biggest in Ukrainian tech industry history.
Looksery Inc. is a San Francisco Bay Area company founded in 2013 by Victor Shaburov, an entrepreneur from the Black Sea port city of Odesa. The company, which has a team spanning the United States and Eastern Europe, specializes in developing face modification technologies for real-time video.
It launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter the same year it was founded, and overshot its fundraising goal, collecting around $50,000, pledged by 164 backers from around the globe.
“At the core we are mathematicians – coding and developing facial mapping algorithms,” the Looksery team wrote in their profile on the Ukrainian online journal DOU, which is focused on the IT sphere.
“Together with a hard-core group of designers, marketers, and more, we are here to solve hard problems to make big things happen,” they go on.
In September, the Looksery app disappeared from the mobile app stores of Apple and Google. The Snapchat app, however, has introduced a new feature, called Lenses, that modifies your face, making eyes bigger, the face leaner, adding graphic symbols like emojis, turning you into a ghost or monster, or making your skin look wrinkled.
The way Snapchat’s Lenses feature works is almost identical to how the Looksery app used to change your appearance. Users can add cartoon-like images of eyeballs or other exaggerating fi lters to spruce up their selfies.
Snapchat now offers seven free lenses, with one of the seven being replaced every day with a new one.
In addition to the seven free animated selfie lenses, since November, Snapchat has been off ering 30 additional ones priced at 99 cents apiece. Unlike the free lenses, the paid ones can be kept by the buyer forever. According to TechCrunch, an online publisher of technology industry news, the strategy will help Snapchat return the money it spent on the acquisition of Looksery at a rapid pace.
Noting that the Looksery acquisition
was the biggest and most successful in
the history of Ukrainian tech startups,
managing director of venture capital
company GrowthUp Denis Dovgopoliy
told AIN.UA on Sept. 16 he was sure that
the deal would show the world that global
companies are not afraid of buying
Ukrainian startups.
“It seems to me, this is a perfect example
of how the Ukrainian IT sector should
be grown and developed,” Dovgopoliy
said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at [email protected]. The
Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by Looksery, Ciklum, Steltec
Capital and SoftServe.
The content is independent of the donors.
