from the Sony Pictures hack have uncovered several acquisitions made by Snapchat, as well as plans for a music feature and meetings to discuss partnerships with Twitter.
According to emails between Snapchat, Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, and Snapchat board member Mitch Lasky, Snapchat bought a QR scanning and iBeacon startup called Scan.me for $14 million in cash, $3 million in restricted stock units and $33 million in Class B common Snapchat stock. It also acquired Vergence Labs, makers of an eyeglass video camera, for $11 million in cash and $4 million in stock.
Snapchat also apparently paid $10 million in cash and $20 million in stock and bonuses for AddLive, the startup Snapchat bought to power its real-time video chat feature but didn’t have the price for.
Other information contained in the emails includes that fact that Snapchat has recently been working on a music feature, and CEO Evan Spiegel has grand aspirations to promote artists through his app and capitalize on their success. Snapchat negotiated with Vevo for a feature that sounds like it would bring music video viewing inside Snapchat in August, but hit a snag over the revenue sharing on advertising. Valleywag reported earlier today that emails indicate the acquisition deal from Facebook that Snapchat turned down was more than $3 billion.
(Tech 2)