Facebook acquires CTRL Labs & ServiceFriend to expand Business Offerings

Facebook acquired both ServiceFriend and CTRL Lab. The social media giant plans to expand business offerings by integrating these two startups into their platform.

CTRL Labs is a New York-based neural interface startup that produces mind-reading wristband. The company was founded by Patrick Kaifosh and co-founder in 2018. It has since raised $67 million in venture capital.

The non-invasive platform lets developers reimagine the relationship between humans and machines using new intuitive control schemes. The acquisition was revealed in a post by Andrew Boz Bosworth, Facebook’s head of AR and VR, in his Facebook post.

Bosworth stated that CTRL Lab’s wristwatch is instrumental in developing new ways for machines to interact with traditional mouse-and-keyboard setups, touchscreens, or any form of physical controllers. The acquisition will also enable Facebook scale it augmented reality gadgets since it recently launched two models of AR glasses.

The deal, worth over $1billion came as the most substantial acquisition by Facebook. It also serves as the highest investment Facebook has made on its growing hardware ambitions. The equipment of the CTRL labs will be used to augment future virtual reality projects.

The company also acquired ServiceFriend, an Israeli hybrid chatbot startup company. ServiceFriend builds bots that make use of artificial intelligence in building messaging apps for customer service teams.

Facebook may leverage this acquisition to build a hybrid chatbot for Calibra, its digital cryptocurrency wallet. ServiceFriend founder, Shahar Ben Ami will work with other Facebook staff members in the Calibra digital wallet group.