After an antitrust lawsuit with the FTC, Meta has officially closed the deal to acquire Within, the VR developer behind fitness app Supernatural. It has taken toptechtrends.com/2021/10/29/meta-facebook-is-buying-within-creators-of-the-supernatural-vr-fitness-app/”>more than a year for the deal to secure necessary approvals to move forward. The financial terms were not disclosed.
The FTC toptechtrends.com/2022/07/27/ftc-is-suing-meta-to-block-acquisition-of-vr-fitness-app/”>sued Meta in July to block the purchase of Within, the creators of the VR fitness app toptechtrends.com/2021/10/29/meta-facebook-is-buying-within-creators-of-the-supernatural-vr-fitness-app/”>Supernatural, alleging that the acquisition would be anti-competitive. Meta has a history of buying up promising VR technology to power its toptechtrends.com/2022/10/26/meta-revenue-decline-q3-2022-metaverse/”>mutlibillion-dollar bet on the metaverse, including toptechtrends.com/2019/11/26/facebook-buys-the-vr-studio-behind-beat-saber/”>Beat Games, the studio behind Beat Saber, and toptechtrends.com/2014/07/21/facebooks-acquisition-of-oculus-closes-now-official/”>Oculus, which powers Meta’s hardware. But after a trial in which Meta CEO toptechtrends.com/2022/12/20/ftc-puts-zuckerberg-on-the-stand-over-metas-plan-to-acquire-within/”>Mark Zuckerberg testified, a judge ruled that Meta could toptechtrends.com/2023/02/01/report-meta-wins-ruling-against-ftc-to-move-forward-with-purchase-of-vr-startup-within/”>go forward with the acquisition.
This victory comes at a trying time for Meta, only a few months out from its toptechtrends.com/2022/11/09/meta-confirms-11000-layoffs-amounting-to-13-of-its-workforce/”>13% workforce reduction. Last week, the company revealed in its earnings report that it hastoptechtrends.com/2021/10/29/meta-facebook-is-buying-within-creators-of-the-supernatural-vr-fitness-app/”> lost $13.7 billion on AR and VR in the past year. Reality Labs, its division for these technologies, only brought in $2.16 billion in revenue.
The subscription-based Supernatural app has a cult following — its Facebook group has almost 77,000 members (… only some of whom think they’re on a fan page for the long-running CW show of the same name). But even with a community of people paying $20 per month to work out in VR, Meta still has a steep hill to climb to reclaim its loss tens of billions of dollars over the years.
toptechtrends.com/2023/02/09/meta-acquires-within-despite-ftc-concerns/”>Meta acquires Within despite FTC concerns by toptechtrends.com/author/amanda-silberling/”>Amanda Silberling originally published on toptechtrends.com/”>TechCrunch
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