Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has just acquired the Dutch smart eyewear startup Luxexcel.
According to Engadget, a Meta spokesperson said that the Lexexcel team joining Meta would deepen the existing relationship between the two companies, though details on the financial terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed.
Established in 2009, Luxexcel started as a custom glass manufacturer. More recently, the company has made a name for itself in the field of augmented reality. In early 2021, the company partnered with WaveOptics, a display manufacturer that Snap paid $500 million later that year. There are also rumors that Luxexcel previously worked with Meta on the company’s Aria glass project platform.
The acquisition comes as Meta faces regulatory scrutiny from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over its purchase of developer Supernatural Inside. The agency sued Meta in July to block the deal. Meta also faced criticism over the amount of money spent to further its metaverse ambitions.
In October, a month before laying off 11,000 employees, Meta told investors Reality Labs – the virtual and augmented reality unit – that it had lost more than $9 billion by 2022. The firm continued to predict The division’s operating losses are likely to “increase substantially year over year” in 2023.