Snap Acquires Team Behind Startup That Obscures Code to Counter Copying Competitors
Snap has acquired Strong.codes, a Swiss startup that develops tools to make code more difficult for competitors to copy or reverse-engineer.
The acquisition appears to have mostly been for the talent behind the startup—the team was only five strong—and occurred in secret earlier this year, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Snap has since shuttered the fledgling company, though its founding members remain in Europe. Indeed, Snap appears intent on expanding its presence in the region; the company was spotted advertising for technical roles in Switzerland and is sponsoring Black Alps 17, a cybersecurity conference in the area.
It is no surprise that Snap, which popped on the public market earlier this year but has since gone flat, desires protection from competitors. Facebook, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has spent the last year relentlessly mimicking Snapchat’s core features across its platforms.
