Apple Acquired Machine-Learning Green Screen Startup For $30 Million: Report

Apple acquired Danish machine-learning green screen startup Spektral last year for $30 million, according to a report in Danish newspaper Børsen that was published just this week.

Apple has doubled down on developing more sophisticated augmented reality technology that merges the real world with the virtual on its devices. In its latest operating system upgrade, iOS 12, Apple now allows users the ability to integrate their own faces with various shapes, text and emojis in FaceTime. And newer iPhones also allow users to create a 3-D avatar in an emoji-like style called a Memoji.

CRN has reached out to Apple for comment on the reported acquisition.

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According to Spektral’s website, the company does research around “machine learning for real-time compositing”—essentially green screen technology: “We’re devoted to pushing out new cutting edge technology that gives users superior opportunities to create and work easily with c.touts of images and video,” the website says.

Spektral—formerly known as CloudCutout—was founded by Toke Jansen and Henrik Paltoft with the “vision of becoming the standard software solution for removing the background of images.”

The company has raised a total of $3.3 million in two funding rounds, according to Crunchbase.