Mozilla Organization, the company that created the web browser Firefox, has completed the acquisitions of two startups founded in Canada to bolster its metaverse strategy.
This week, Mozilla announced that it bought Vancouver-based virtual spaces and events startup Active Replica as well as productivity apps company Pulse. Mozilla purchased the startups as it builds out Hubs, the company’s virtual reality (VR) collaboration platform.
As Mark Zuckerberg continues to invest in the metaverse, Mozilla’s bid for the metaverse hype involves an active acquisition strategy.
A spokesperson for Mozilla told BetaKit that Mozilla is not disclosing the financial terms of either acquisition deals. The spokesperson noted, however, that both transactions closed within the last two weeks.
Mozilla said that bringing Active Replica onboard will help the former in accelerating developments for Hubs, including more personalized subscription tiers, improving the Hubs’ onboarding experience, and new interaction capabilities.
Pulse will spearhead Mozilla’s efforts in applied ethical machine learning as Mozilla said it is investing to make its products more personal, starting with Pocket (acquired in 2017).
As of this month, Active’s co-founders Jacob Ervin and Valerian Denis have assumed new roles at Mozilla, now working as senior engineering manager and product lead, respectively.
Established in 2020, Active offers virtual event packages comprising custom venue design, event planning, live entertainment, and tech support. Active is a developer on Hubs, meaning that it built its offering on top of the Hubs ecosystem built by Mozilla.
According to Active’s statement about the acquisition: “By joining forces with the Mozilla Hubs team, we’re able to further expand on our mission and inspire a new generation of creators, connectors, and builders. Active Replica will continue to work with our existing customers, partners and community.”
Headquartered in Silicon Valley but with Canadian roots, Pulse (formerly Loop Team) provides automated status update integrations for Slack. The startup was founded in 2019 by Raj Singh (CEO) and Jag Srawan (CTO), the latter from Canada. Through an API, users could sync Pulse with other productivity apps, like their calendar and Slack, to set rules that automate status updates based on keywords in the event title. Under its initial name, Pulse offered a virtual office platform until it rebranded last November.
In 2019, Toronto venture capital fund Golden Ventures invested in Pulse when the company was still named Loop.
Pulse announced in late October that it was shutting down, citing “market conditions” and difficulty in raising fresh capital. Singh told BetaKit that fundraising plans fell through after the co-founders got “engaged in acquisition decisions,” which ended in its sale to Mozilla.
Featured image courtesy Mozilla Hubs.