Back in October 2016, Samsung announced that it had acquired artificial intelligence startup Viv Labs. Unfortunately, at the time, the financial terms of the deal weren’t revealed. The firm has now, however, disclosed that it inked the contract for an eye-watering 238.93 million won on Friday, October 8, when the Korean won was equal to $0.0009 — so it paid roughly $215 million.
As noted by VentureBeat, since being taken over by Samsung Research America, Viv Labs has generated a loss of $3.08 million. That’s bad news, especially when you take into account that the startup received $30 million in funding shortly after being acquired. At present, it’s unclear how Samsung plans to use the Viv technology, which can surface information based on voice input, like Siri.
It was previously reported that the South Korean company would bake Viv into its next flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S8, but the slew of leaks surrounding its in-house virtual assistant Bixby launching on the handset appears to shun that theory. We’d be foolish to rule out that Samsung may have only acquired Viv Labs to analyze the technology it uses, in order to make its own AI stronger.
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