附近上门

Lyft that it has acquired augmented reality startup . The ridesharing company, which has its eyes set on an IPO in 2019, said the London-based startup will 鈥渂ecome the UK hub for Lyft鈥檚 Level 5 self-driving division.鈥�

Follow 附近上门 News on

Blue Vision Labs was founded in 2016 and has developed precise, collaborative augmented reality software. According to TechCrunch鈥檚of the company, the technology 鈥渃an pinpoint people and other moving objects in a space to within centimeters of their actual location.鈥� It鈥檚 easy to see how this technology could benefit Lyft鈥檚 self-driving cars, particularly given the of the safety of self-driving vehicles.

The company raised a known total of in venture funding before the acquisition, per 附近上门, and is backed by , as well as , , and . Blue Vision Labs is being acquired at around $72 million with the potential for the deal to reach over $100 million, according to .

Lyft first announced its self-driving division in, and this is the company鈥檚 first acquisition in the space. The company鈥檚 main competitor in the ridesharing industry–– has a (money burning) autonomous vehicle division of its own. Uber itself has acquired two startups in the space, including geospatial software company , and the more controversial autonomous truck startup Otto in August 2016 (which ).

But Uber isn鈥檛 the only company Lyft is up against. It also has to battle Google鈥檚 , GM鈥檚 , s initiative, and a host of autonomous vehicle startups including . Buying a company with software that can help its cars avoid crashing into things, particularly people, is probably a good bet.

Illustration Credit: