Blippar consolidates West Coast offices in cost-saving measure


Augmented reality startup Blippar has closed its San Francisco office in an effort to reduce costs, consolidating its employees into its nearby Mountain View offices, which were opened last year.

According to Blippar, the move has been on the cards since the new, larger offices opened, but a report by Business Insider in April claimed that the company was losing around $3m (£2.3m) per month, citing former employees. Blippar claimed this figure was incorrect, but has not released actual expenditure reports.

“By bringing these two teams together, we are proud to have created what is now our single largest engineering hub in the world, specialising in computer vision, deep learning and AR,” said a Blippar spokesperson in a blog post announcing the consolidation. “Our Mountain View office is now the largest in the Blippar group and we are delighted that the process we started exactly one year ago to bring both engineering teams together is now complete.”

Blippar’s main product remains its eponymous AR app, but it has increasingly pivoted towards computer vision and image recognition as time has passed. According to former staff, the AR app has struggled to maintain monthly active users, and the company still lacks a strong business model and healthy revenue stream.

The UK-based startup still has eight offices around the globe including London, New York, Tokyo and Singapore, and a staff of at least 250. The company has raised around $100m in funding since its launch in 2010, and has been valued at over £1bn.