After an antitrust lawsuit with the FTC, Meta officially closed the deal to acquire Within, the VR developer behind fitness app Supernatural. It took more than a year for the deal to get the necessary approvals to move forward. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The FTC sued Meta in July to block the purchase of Within, the creators of VR fitness app Supernatural, alleging the acquisition would be anti-competitive. Meta has a history of buying promising VR technology to fuel its multi-billion dollar bet on the Metaverse, including Beat Games, the studio behind Beat Saber, and Oculus, which powers Meta’s hardware. But after a trial in which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified, a judge ruled that Meta could go ahead with the acquisition.
The win comes at a difficult time for Meta, just months away from its 13% workforce reduction. Last week, the company revealed in its earnings report that it had lost $13.7 billion on AR and VR over the past year. Reality Labs, its technology division, reported just $2.16 billion in revenue.
The subscription-based Supernatural app has a cult following – its Facebook group has nearly 77,000 members (…only some of whom believe they’re on a fan page for the long-running CW show of the same name). But even with a community of people paying $20 a month to train in VR, Meta still has a steep hill to climb to recoup its loss of tens of billions of dollars over the years.
