Niantic acquires creative AR studio NZXR

Pokémon Go developer Niantic announced that it has acquired New Zealand-based creative AR studio NZXR, for an undisclosed sum.  Joining Niantic, the NZXR team will become an integral part of the design and development of multiplayer real-world AR experiences unique to Niantic.

The company’s new acquisition comes one month after it purchased WebAR development platform 8th Wall. With the latest acquisition, Niantic aims to accelerate new kinds of AR experiences for the real-world metaverse where its users can create, contribute, and interact with digital objects, like in Pokémon GO and Pikmin Bloom. 

“We’re excited to welcome NZXR to Niantic and continue building the future of AR and the real-world metaverse together,” said Dennis Hwang, VP of Visual and Interaction Design, in a blog post announcing the acquisition. 

NZXR has created interactive AR apps and prototypes for mobile phones, and AR headsets from Qualcomm and Magic Leap.

“At Niantic we’ll continue doing what we love, collaborating with some of the best in the business to make AR concepts tangible on in-development tech. We’re excited to work more deeply with the wonderful game teams at Niantic and contribute to Lightship to support a much wider development community than we ever imagined,” NZXR said in a blog post.