Ubiquity6 and its staff were acquired by Discord, the gaming chat app.The ambitious AR startup had raised $37.5million from a number of high-profile investors, including Benchmark, First Round and Kleiner Perkins. These top investors were betting on the company's vision to build a platform that hosts augmented reality content for consumers. The company's latest publicly disclosed financing was a $27million Series B in October 2018.Although the terms of the Discord acquisition were not disclosed, it was apparent that Ubiquity6 has been having difficulty finding large audiences for its products in recent months.Ubiquity6 launched its app in 2017 with the goal of making it the main way that mobile phone users browse augmented reality content. The startup released Displayland in late 2019 as a product that aimed to gamify 3D scanning of physical environments using a smartphone camera.The mobile AR market has been a major obstacle to the company's attempts to reach mass adoption despite substantial investment by tech giants like Apple and Google.Anjney Midha, the CEO of the startup, told TechCrunch in early 2020 that it had 65 employees.Ubiquity6 has made a dramatic pivot in recent months. They have abandoned augmented reality entirely to build a desktop platform that allows users to play simple online games. Backyard, a beta platform that was created for the pandemic era, is now in decline. As part of the acquisition announcement, Backyard was removed from service.Midha appears to have downplayed any expectation that Ubiquity6s Augmented Reality Technology will continue to live on in Discord, according to a Medium post.Midha said that Ubiquity6's mission has been to create new opportunities for people to connect through shared experiences. Discord's membership today will allow us to accelerate this mission Ubiquity6s Backyard product, multiplayer technology and team will all be integrated into Discord.
