Naver Labs to acquire 3D technology startup Epipolar

vivian

March 30, 2017

Naver Labs, a research and development subsidiary of South Korea’s Internet services provider Naver Corp. announced that it will acquire domestic three-dimensional (3D) developer Epipolar in a bid to enhance its competitiveness in 3D maps.

Founded in 2015 by the development team of the nation’s largest mobile platform operator Kakao Corp., Epipolar has been widely acknowledged as the best in its field in Korea.

It gained industry spotlight for participating in the Seoul 3D spatial information system advancement project and developed the first domestic 3D spatial information system using WebGL which has become the standard for rendering 3D graphics on the web.

But apart from providing 3D mapping information, Epipolar has also developed a visual search engine through which one can discover the POI (Point of Interest) information of a specific building based on its photograph.

As demand for 3D mapping has been increasing in parallel to automated driving, robotics, and applications of AR technology, Epipolar seems like a right choice for Naver Labs which aims to strengthen its 3D mapping technology and contents.
Naver Labs CEO and Naver CTO Song ChangHyeon said, “Epipolar’s 3D technology will form a synergy with a variety of future technologies, and we expect it to take Naver Labs technology a step further.”

This acquisition is just the start. As Song adds that Naver Labs will continue to strengthen its intelligence technology in living space and look forwards to form more partnerships.

By Vivian Foo, VCNewsNetwork

vivian

Vivian Foo is a reporter who writes about Southeast Asia’s technology and startup space. The entry point which led her to write about the startup ecosystem was her fascination of the dot-com boom. She is taking a deep dive into how the entrepreneurial mindset works and hopes to share the insights, innovation, and stories of the startups with her readers.