Roblox acquires real-time facial animation company Loom.ai

Roblox announced today it has acquired real-time facial animation firm Loom.ai to “bring real-time and real-life emotions to every Roblox avatar”. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

“We believe as people share experiences virtually, their avatars should have the ability to express a full range of emotions,” said David Baszucki, CEO of Roblox. “Loom.ai will accelerate making human co-experiences more immersive and personal, adding world-class facial animation technology as part of Roblox’s efforts to provide expressive emotive actions to avatars that will enable deeper connections for our community.”

With the acquisition of Loom.ai, Roblox aims to create a universe of interconnected virtual worlds as Epic Games does. 

“The opportunity to build real-life facial expressions for the millions of Roblox players is a dream come true. In the future, Roblox players can imagine watching their favorite music artist singing with facial expressions during a virtual concert or interacting with friends in a life-like, interactive way. The expression of emotions that will be brought to life by the Roblox community is limitless.”

“From our very first meeting with David Baszucki, it was clear we share a vision where art and engineering meet to create an exciting range of personalized avatars and characters,” said Kiran Bhat, co-founder of Loom.ai. “We will continue our work on that vision to bring real-time and real-life emotions to every Roblox avatar.”

The deal comes after Roblox has delayed its planned initial public offering (IPO), according to a memo Roblox sent to employees.