Blippar, an augmented-reality pioneer, has repositioned as a B2B company centered on its Blippbuilder SaaS AR creation platform and an in-house Studio B for bespoke work. The company targets use cases across live events, retail, FMCG, automotive, healthcare and education and positions itself as a platform-agnostic alternative to tech giants' AR tools. After earlier consumer-market ambitions, Blippar now leverages the IP and assets from its prior incarnation while operating much leaner. Headcount has fallen from about 340 at its peak to roughly 30 employees, and historically the company raised about $130 million and once claimed a $1.5 billion valuation. In 2020 the company reported a 200% increase in revenue quarter on quarter and says it has delivered campaigns for brands including OnePlus, Kellogg’s and Dr Pepper. Leadership changes have followed the turnaround, with Ambarish Mitra serving as Chief Product Officer and Faisal Galaria cited as CEO driving the repositioning. Founded in 2011, Blippar began by offering AR experiences for brand marketers and publishers, letting users unlock content by scanning a tag called a “Blipp.” The company later shifted toward computer-vision products, launching a consumer-facing visual search engine that identifies cars, plants, and other real-world objects. Most recently Blippar introduced an indoor positioning system to enable AR mapping and content inside commercial buildings. The company has repeatedly pivoted its product focus as the AR market has evolved. Those pivots have strained the business financially: in the 16-month period ending March 31, 2016 Blippar reported £8.5 million ($11.2 million) in revenue and £24 million ($31.5 million) in losses. To date the company has raised more than $137 million, and the latest funding is intended to fund a push to reach profitability within the next 12 months. Blippar launched in 2012 to bring augmented reality to everyday objects for brands, advertisers, and publishers by adding ‘Blipps’ to items like magazine pages and product packaging. Over the past four years it expanded beyond branded AR to deliver real-time AR recognition for many real-world objects, including plants, animals and food. Leading brands can use Blippar’s machine-learning platform to index their products so users can scan items (for example, a pair of Nike shoes) and see price and availability information. The company operates a 60-person engineering team in San Francisco. Blippar emphasizes machine learning and AI as core technology for its real-time AR search engine. It recently closed a funding round to support building out that engineering team and its ML/AI capabilities. Blippar is an augmented-reality advertising and publishing platform that uses real-world markers called "Blipps" to deliver AR layers of content via a camera. The company has historically brokered branded experiences and counted more than 2,500 brands on its platform. Blippar acquired Layar in June 2014 and the merged companies boast over 50 million global users. Founder Rish Mitra positions the technology as enabling a new form of visual search—pointing a camera at an object to surface purchase pages, social conversation, and videos. The company is rolling out a markerless version of its product that would let users "blipp" arbitrary objects and plans to unveil the technology at SXSW. Financially, Blippar announced $45 million in new funding from undisclosed investors. Blippar is a London-based startup that offers a mobile image-recognition and augmented reality platform. Its technology turns a smartphone camera into a ‘lens’ that overlays virtual information — such as links, digital coupons, videos or promotions — on real-world objects. The company says it achieved hundreds of thousands of consumer downloads in the first seven months after its UK debut. Major brands including Tesco, Nestle, Samsung and Unilever have run campaign ‘blipps’ on the platform. Blippar has taken undisclosed seed funding from Qualcomm Ventures and says the seed will act as a springboard to a larger Series A. It expects to close that Series A in early 2012.

Total raised

$141M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Mar 2021