Faceshift sold to Apple or Intel?

Faceshift produces facial motion tracking software using 3D depth cameras as input, which are able to track subtle nuances in both the surface and texture of the face. The company, led by Thibaut Weise, is a spin-off from EPFL and ETH Zurich.

In August, Weise, co-founder and CTO Brian Amberg and Mark Pauly, associate professor at the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL, left the board of the company. They were replaced by Martin H. Frey, a lawyer at Baker & McKenzie in Zurich. His practice covers private equity — including venture capital and buyouts — mergers, acquisitions and corporate restructuring, with an emphasis on cross-border transactions. Frey advised Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. on its acquisition of Swiss biotech start-up Oncoethix SA.

In addition, the website of Faceshift has changed and gives the impression that the firm no longer sells its software. These are clear indications that Faceshift has been acquired by a large US corporation.

Faceshift had a lengthy collaboration with Intel, which has already bought two Swiss start-ups this year (Composyt Light Labs and Lemoptix). Intel may be the buyer here too, but MacRumors believes that “Swiss real-time motion capture firm Faceshift may have been acquired by Apple in recent weeks”.

MacRumors gives several reasons for this assumption:

• Apple has worked with Baker & McKenzie before.
• The highly secretive nature of the acquisition is typical of Apple.
• In 2010, Apple acquired Swedish facial recognition firm Polar Rose, and the company has filed several patent applications related to the technology.
• Real-time 3D motion capture was the key technology of PrimeSense, for which Apple reportedly paid nearly $350 million in 2013.

Currently, we are trying to get more information from our network. We will keep you updated.