Pokémon Go creator Niantic Labs has acquired a startup called Evertoon, which is exploring ways to add “social mechanics to digital products.”
CEO Niantic John Hanke said in a blog post that the company will tap Evertoon’s experience in social systems that will benefit Niantic’s entire community.
“The Niantic family is growing, and we couldn’t be more pleased to welcome a great group of people who will help evolve, challenge and grow our company in new ways. Today I am excited to announce that we have acquired the Evertoon team, who bring with them a wealth of talent and experience in mobile products, tools for creativity, and community building,” Hanke said.
Niniane Wang started Evertoon in San Francisco in 2014. The company has five employees. Niantic won’t say how many employees it has now.
Wang’s LinkedIn page says that Evertoon has “created technology to let people turn themselves into 3D avatars, use emojis to animate the characters, and easily create stories.” Hanke didn’t say exactly what it’s going to do with Evertoon.
Evertoon created a mobile app where users can make and share avatars, backgrounds, and videos. The platform has also enabled community creators to make paid videos for businesses. Evertoon received funding from Greylock, Arena, Amino Capital, and angel investors including Ellen Pao, Ali Rosenthal, Charlie Cheever.
“As our products and platform evolve, they will help build social systems that will benefit our entire community. We are also excited to have Niniane’s engineering leadership and team management skills, as our team grows,” Hanke said.
Wang is the former chief technology officer of Minted. She was the founder of Google Lively (an early avatar chat platform), cofounder of Google Desktop, and she led Gmail Ads engineering. She was also a leader for Microsoft Flight Simulator visual effects engineering.
