Atheer Acquires ONtheGO Platforms to Further Advance Gesture Interaction with Augmented Reality Smart Glasses

The addition of ONtheGO Platforms' engineering and intellectual property strength enhances Atheer's smart glasses platform and its natural and mobile interaction experience

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Atheer

Dec 02, 2015, 12:00 ET

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec. 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Atheer, the company pioneering the new AiR™ (Augmented interactive Reality™) computing platform, today announced an agreement to acquire ONtheGO Platforms. Using computer vision and proprietary algorithms, ONtheGO is the provider of Ari™, a gesture recognition software that turns any mobile device with a standard camera into a gesture interface. On the heels of announcing the world's most interactive AiR™ Glasses and the collaboration-centric AiR™ Enterprise Suite, this acquisition will give Atheer customers an enhanced ability to use natural gestures on the Atheer AiR™ smart glasses platform.

"As we continue to build an enterprise-class smart glasses platform, natural interactivity is front and center of the rich Atheer experience," said Alberto Torres, CEO of Atheer. "ONtheGO shares a strong and synergistic patent portfolio and talent that will benefit our rapidly growing customer base and the overall market of smart glasses. We look forward to creating innovative solutions for Fortune 1000 companies with our expanded team."

Founded in 2012 and based in Portland, Oregon, ONtheGO Platforms built Ari™ on smart glasses first to handle the constraints of limited CPU and battery power of a wearable mobile computing environment. The result has been a fast, light, and accurate mobile gesture recognition software. Combining this technology with Atheer's gesture, voice and motion tracking-based interactive platform will enrich the way people interact with mobile devices. ONtheGO adds 3 issued and 6 pending patents to Atheer's strong IP portfolio of gesture interaction and rich visuality technologies, bringing the total to 14 issued patents and nearly 50 additional pending patents. All of ONtheGO Platforms' employees will be joining the Atheer staff and will continue to operate from Portland.

"Gesture recognition technology has been around for decades and mobile devices have recently become a viable candidate for this computationally heavy technology," said Ryan Fink, VP of Market Development at Atheer and former CEO of ONtheGO Platforms. "We're thrilled to join Atheer, where together we will be the most comprehensive gesture recognition platform in the market and will further enhance productivity for deskless professionals worldwide."

ONtheGO Platforms has previously received investments from Brad Feld through his FG Angel Seed Fund and Paul Kedrosky through SK Ventures. Financial terms of the ONtheGO Platforms acquisition were not disclosed.

"ONtheGO Platforms will always have a special place in our hearts as our first FG Angels investment. Since our investment in 2014, it's been great to see Ryan and his team grow their IP and technology to become pioneers in the Augmented Reality space," said Jason Mendelson, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Foundry Group. "Atheer is a leader in this space and we're excited about what the two companies will be able to accomplish together."

About Atheer
Atheer is the pioneer of AiR™ (Augmented interactive Reality) computing that is designed to enhance the productivity and safety of deskless professionals at Fortune 1000 companies. The award-winning Atheer AiR platform combines the power of immersive augmented reality with intelligent gesture, voice and head-motion interactions as well as real-time rich-media collaboration, all on a mobile smart glasses platform. Wearing the see-through AiR Glasses enables viewing rich information critical to workflows, interacting with the information naturally and collaborating with remote peers like never before – without the need to hold any device. Leveraging the Android-based Atheer AiR platform, developers and companies around the world are creating next generation enterprise productivity applications and workflows to empower the 21st century workforce. The company is based in Mountain View, CA and is backed by prominent investors including Bobby Yazdani, Co-Founder of Saba Software, and Farzad Naimi, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, RONA Holdings. For more information, please visit http://www.atheerair.com, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and like us on Facebook.

Contact: Monica Cho, [email protected], 415.685.4273

SOURCE Atheer