InfinityAR Is Being Acquired By Alibaba’s Israel Machine Vision Laboratory

InfinityAR, the Israeli mixed reality platform company, announced Monday (March 25) that it’s being acquired by Alibaba’s Israel Machine Vision Laboratory.

In a press release, the company said that it had been partnering with the Israel Machine Vision Laboratory for three years, working together to accelerate the development of frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality and computer vision.

“We look forward to be joining Alibaba, a world-class innovative global technology company, and as part of the company’s Israel Machine Vision Laboratory,” said Motti Kushnir, chief executive officer and co-founder of Infinity Augmented Reality, in the press release. “Alibaba’s expertise in turning technologies into next-generation products will be a great platform for the future technologies of computer vision, AR and AI.”

Once the deal, terms of which were not disclosed, is complete, InfinityAR’s research and development team will work from Alibaba’s lab in Israel. It’s one of the labs the Chinese eCommerce giant rolled out to explore computer vision and navigation. During the past year, InfinityAR said Alibaba’s lab has been partnering with Tel Aviv University to advance studies in video analysis and machine learning.  “Alibaba is delighted to be working with InfinityAR as one team after three years of partnership. The talented team brings unique know-how in sensor fusion, computer vision, and navigation technologies. We look forward to exploring these leading technologies and offering additional benefits to customers, partners and developers,” said Prof. Lihi Zelnik-Manor, head of Alibaba Israel Machine Vision Laboratory.

Alibaba’s purchase of InfinityAR is one of many in recent years the eCommerce giant had made to branch into different businesses. With eCommerce in China getting saturated, Alibaba has set its sights around the world to expand.  That’s not to say Alibaba isn’t growing, just at a slower pace than in years past. For 2018 Alibaba had revenue growth of 41 percent to 117.3 billion yuan.