Walmart Acquires VR Startup Spatialand

On Tuesday, Walmart’s Store No 8 technology incubator announced that it had acquired VR startup Spatialand, with the goal of building and discovering new products and uses of VR to provide an immersive shopping experience across Walmart’s different websites and stores. Spatialand creates software tools that enable companies to turn existing content into VR experiences. The startup’s founder, Kim Cooper, and approximately 10 employees will join Walmart as part of the deal. Katie Finnegan, who leads Store No 8, will step in as the company’s new interim CEO, Recode reported. Finnegan did not disclose details on future projects and said that the team’s work may not become public for 12–18 months. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but it is believed to be a relatively small deal by M&A standards. Walmart formed Store No 8 in an effort to build its own retail startups in-house. The technology incubator and investment arm is based in Silicon Valley and aims to identify cutting-edge startups that specialize in areas such as robotics, VR, augmented reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Spatialand is the third company that Store No 8 has added to its portfolio. The deal follows a very busy 18 months of acquisitions by Walmart, as shown below.

*Recode reported that the acquisition was less than $10 million. **TechCrunch reported that a Walmart source said the acquisition was “along the same lines” as the company’s two previous acquisitions, which were of ShoeBuy ($70 million) and Moosejaw ($51 million). Source: Company reports/FGRT