Report: Alphabet said to be close to buying Canadian smart glasses maker North for ~$180M; sales of North's first generation Focals were said to be minuscule
The reported ~$180M price barely clears what backers put in, which frames this less as a product acquisition than a rescue of North's engineering team by Alphabet — a company with its own long, unresolved interest in face-worn computing.
First-order effects
North's planned Focals 2.0 — the higher-resolution successor teased when v1 sales stalled — becomes untenable under Alphabet ownership, leaving existing Focals owners with a product line headed for wind-down.
Intel and Amazon, among North's largest backers, are looking at exits near or below their collective ~$170M invested, turning one of consumer AR's better-funded startups into a modest outcome.
Second-order effects
Google gains a ready-made optics and miniaturization team without restarting its own hardware program, sharpening its position against Amazon and Apple should either push consumer AR glasses next.
Other venture-backed AR hardware startups now have a fresh comp: exit at roughly the money raised rather than chase mass-market retail against deep-pocketed platform owners, which pressures their investors' follow-on decisions.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, standalone consumer AR hardware companies become structurally unviable — the sensing, display, and manufacturing costs demand balance sheets only platform giants have, concentrating the category inside a few labs.
Google's later move to acquire eye-tracking specialist AdHawk Microsystems suggests the North deal was one step in a sustained build-out of face-worn sensing capabilities rather than a one-off rescue.
The trend: Consumer AR is consolidating from independent hardware startups into acqui-hires and component deals absorbed by the largest platform companies, with Google quietly assembling a glasses stack piece by piece.
Pretty clearly IP grab + acquihire IMO. Aka North is dead. But hopeful for Google's chances at competing with Apple in the next few years. https://twitter.com/...
Globe scoop by @joshokane: Alphabet buying Waterloo smart glasses pioneer North (formerly Thalmic Labs) for about US$180m following years of struggle, sources say /via @globeandmail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/ ...
A vision fades: Alphabet buying Canadian smart glasses pioneer North after years of struggle, sources say. Nice scoop by @joshokane https://www.theglobeandmail.com/ ...
This isn't the ending anyone wanted - but I still admire everyone on the @focalsbynorth team for swinging for the fences. They were a positive force in #KW when it was needed - and they did a lot of good. https://twitter.com/...
I guess this was inevitable? Focals with Google Assistant is all I really wanted anyway. Still, I don't feel great about this and I'm not totally sure why yet. https://twitter.com/...
Sad to see @focalsbynorth get bought. Never been harder for a small company to survive. Seems only 3 or 4 mega-corps get to decide what our tech future should be. We've never needed alternative tech interactions more than now. Hope Google does this right. https://www.youtube.com/…