North Wearables, a Canada-based augmented reality (AR) glasses developer backed by e-commerce and internet group Amazon and chipmaker Intel, was acquired by internet technology provider Google on Tuesday.
Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed but a source told the Globe and Mail that Google had paid approximately $180m for the company. The announcement follows reports in March 2020 that North had been seeking a buyer since the middle of 2019.
Founded in 2012 as Thalmic Labs, North has developed AR glasses that are compatible with prescription lenses. They connect to a mobile app and a ring that includes a microphone, allowing users to direct queries to Amazon’s smart assistant, Alexa.
The company had shipped a first iteration of the glasses but wound down sales in late 2019 and will not release the updated version it had planned. North’s team will join Google’s existing office in Kitchener-Waterloo, where the company was headquartered.
Google, a subsidiary of internet and technology group Alphabet, said North’s technology would help drive its vision of “ambient computing,” the corporate’s term for its ecosystem of apps and products designed to unobtrusively assist users, such as smart thermostat Google Nest.
North’s website had placed its total funding at $170m, though a statement at the time of its last publicly disclosed round, a $120m deal in 2015, put the amount at $140m. It had also secured at least $77m in grants and debt financing.
The 2015 round was co-led by Intel and Amazon through their Intel Capital and Amazon Alexa Fund units with Fidelity Investment Canada, a local subsidiary of investment and financial services group Fidelity. They were joined by First Round Capital, iNovia Capital and Spark Capital.
Intel Capital had led a $14.5m series A round for the company in 2013, with participation from Spark Capital, First Round , Formation 8 and FundersClub. Its early investors included Y Combinator and various individuals.
Image courtesy of North Wearables.
