Google Is Buying Innovative Camera Startup Lytro For $40 Million

According to TechCrunch, Google is acquiring Lytro, the imaging startup that began as a ground-breaking camera company for consumers before pivoting to use its depth-data, light-field technology in VR. From the report: One source described the deal as an "asset sale" with Lytro going for no more than $40 million. Another source said the price was even lower: $25 million and that it was shopped around -- to Facebook, according to one source; and possibly to Apple, according to another. A separate person told us that not all employees are coming over with the company's technology: some have already received severance and parted ways with the company, and others have simply left. Assets would presumably also include Lytro's 59 patents related to light-field and other digital imaging technology. The sale would be far from a big win for Lytro and its backers. The startup has raised just over $200 million in funding and was valued at around $360 million after its last round in 2017, according to data from PitchBook. Its long list of investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Foxconn, GSV, Greylock, NEA, Qualcomm Ventures and many more. Rick Osterloh, SVP of hardware at Google, sits on Lytro's board. A pricetag of $40 million is not quite the exit that was envisioned for the company when it first launched its camera concept, and in the words of investor Ben Horowitz, "blew my brains to bits."

That's what we called..

[SigIO]

..a "Take Under" back in the dot-com bust days. Good times.

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[ShanghaiBill]

The VCs already put in $200M, and they likely had a controlling stake, so they had to acquiesce to this sale. Most likely they faced a choice of either putting up more capital, or selling it at a loss for whatever they could recover.

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[xvan]

That would make 400% returns.

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[mikael]

Are peapod.com still around? getgooey.com? That website that would let you get all your financial letters scanned in digitally and sent by email so you wouldn't have to have the hassle of opening them yourself?

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[110010001000]

Peapod is still around and popular in the East Coast of the US. Delivering groceries is actually useful.

All acquisitions should be regulated

[Sebby]

Seems to me pretty soon only a select few (read: humongous) companies will own/run everything.

Re:All acquisitions should be regulated

[tlhIngan]

Seems to me pretty soon only a select few (read: humongous) companies will own/run everything.

They already do. Most of the items you buy will be from one of 10 companies. [ibkram.com].

Click that image to embiggen it, because practically everything you eat, drink, or clean yourself with will be there.

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[Rolgar]

This is why we should have within the rules about corporations that ownership should pass to the employees over time if the company gets over a certain size. After the company grows to 10 employees, then the employees get 5% of the company every year until the founder only owns 10%. The founder can retain all voting rights until he chooses to release them, then they go to the employees as well. The owner can only sell his shares to the employee group. Destroy the stock market, and the power of the big compa

Good Luck to Them

[mentil]

I had a feeling they were going to be acquired by someone, it could've been worse than Google. Google's more likely to license the patents and tech than to sit on it all and make it exclusive to Google platforms. Cardboard/Daydream have decent penetration in the VR marketplace, but I can't see Google making lightfield videos exclusive to those. Facebook/Oculus has enough games/experiences 'exclusive' to their platform that they might've done that, though.

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[MichaelSmith]

Its pretty much what google does with streetview right now. Maybe this will help with google's mapping operations.

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[pjt33]

The idea of scenes with objects on many different focus planes that are turned into interactive 2D pictures that the viewer can refocus is completely contrived.

Completely agree. But the idea of being able to take a snap shot without any delay to focus and later pick the focus point and depth of field is a genuinely interesting one, and has applications in certain types of photography. Particularly in wildlife and sports photography, where the subject can move fast. Unfortunately, those particular applicatio

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[Camembert]

Incorrect, they had working cameras. Not vaporware.

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[jolyonr]

But it was a bit of a sham. Their '40 megaray' camera had an actual still image equivalent resolution of 0.4 megapixels (which they went to great lengths to hide) - so it was always a toy rather than a serious tool.

See: http://www.everyothershot.com/... [everyothershot.com]

Re: Innovative Camera Startup ?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I foolishly brought a 640x480 camera as my only camera on my honeymoon in 1998. The slow shutter was as bad as the resolution. Now my 2015 cell phone has as good a sensor as the best pro camera from 2005 and a pro camera today is better than the human eye. Given the rate of technology growth, I expect by 2030 we won't be worrying about exposure or focus when we take the pictures in the field. Lens size doesn't get a pass from physics though.

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[jolyonr]

The specific issue with the Lytro Illum is that it uses a ~40 megapixel traditional sensor to create an 0.4 megapixel "live" image - so even in the future if we were to get a camera that produced a more usable 8 megapixel live image it would need an 800 megapixels sensor to capture that 'live' data. Now, bear in mind the size of the lytro files would then be the size of the 800 megapixel image.

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[orgelspieler]

That's not entirely a fair comparison. The traditional notion of resolution is not what a light field camera seeks to maximize. It captures different/more data than a traditional camera that cannot be rendered in traditional resolution terms. Once you choose the focal length to render the data at, then you have an image with a resolution of 0.4MP but the fact that you can change the focus after the fact is something that a traditional digital camera cannot even attempt. That being said, for most web design

inherent to the technology

[DrYak]

But it was a bit of a sham. Their '40 megaray' camera had an actual still image equivalent resolution of 0.4 megapixels

That's inherent to the technology.

The whole idea behind this light field photography, is that the 40mega pixel sensors receives an array of ~1000 (a matrix of 16x16) sub images.
That gives you ~400k pixels per sub-image, but the final image that you get out isn't just on of the 400k pixel of the image, it's what you get by doing computations based on all the 40m pixels that the sensors captured.

That's why the 400k pixels aren't much relevant (they weren't kept "hidden in a conspiracy", they where mostly non

Can't say I'm surprised...

[DerekLyons]

I can't say I'm surprised... as I said back in 2012, when Lytro first hit the market:

But that's where Lytro misses the bus... It's priced above the average consumer's price range, requires more fiddling and diddling, and requires Lytro's proprietary web based software - all to produce a picture that would be the pride of 2002.

It ends up being a solution in search of a problem. Too much for consumers, too little for prosumers and professionals.

I knew the end was approaching a year or two ago when th

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[tehcyder]

I'm fairly sure that using the word "prosumer" is punishable by a hefty fine and several months in prison in most countries.

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[DerekLyons]

It's a common term in the camera industry and circles. I'm fairly sure you're simply clueless and need to get out more.

Camera has possibilities

[DavidHumus]

I bought one of their early models for $79 a few years ago. It is funny-looking - a rectangular box about the size of a hot-dog - but is intriguing for its possibilities. The image you get actually includes depth information. One of the fun things you can do is create a 3-D image from the single-lens shot.