Facebook snaps up facial recognition startup

“People who use Facebook enjoy sharing photos and memories with their friends, and Face.com’s technology has helped to provide the best photo experience,” a Facebook spokesperson said. “This transaction simply brings a world-class team and a long-time technology vendor in-house.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but previous reports pegged the acquisition price at between $80m (€63m) and $100m. The deal, which is still pending, is expected to close within the coming weeks.

Founded in 2007, Face.com makes technology that can identify people in photos and even guess a person’s age.

The company makes mobile-friendly products such as a developer API (application programming interface) and an Apple iOS camera application called KLIK that uses facial recognition technology to help users automatically tag Facebook friends in photos.

KLIK, according to third- party Facebook app tracking service AppData, has 40,000 monthly active Facebook users.

Face.com’s mobile acumen appears to be the key selling point. Its CEO Gil Hirsch in a blog post said: “We love building products, and like our friends at Facebook, we think that mobile is a critical part of people’s lives as they both create and consume content, and share content with their social graph... By working with Facebook directly, and joining their team, we’ll have more opportunities to build amazing products that will be employed by consumers — that’s all we’ve ever wanted to do.”