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Snapchat made a secret acquisition to power its new video chat

Snapchat made a secret acquisition to power its new video chat

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AddLive brings video streaming expertise to the ephemeral app startup

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To help build and power its new cross-platform video chat service, Snapchat acquired software company AddLive, sources tell The Verge. Snapchat confirmed the deal to The Verge, saying "We are excited to welcome the AddLive team to the Snapchat family. We have no further comment at this time."

The deal went through several months ago, sources say, after Snapchat went on the hunt for companies with the expertise to handle the video platform it envisioned. Snapchat's new video chat lets you initiate video chats within seconds across a great variety of smartphone hardware, which is no small feat. AddLive had previous experience in the space, providing business-to-business voice and audio services for Citrix and a variety of other companies.

"AddLive allows companies to quickly deploy real-time communications with minimal development time," the company's website states. Some of the other features AddLive offers are screen-sharing, multi-party conferencing, and support for browser-based video chat via WebRTC. The company is considered a leader in the browser-based video space, having won the "Best WebRTC Tool" in 2013 awarded by the WebRTC Conference & Expo.

While we don't know the exact details of the deal, with over $120 million raised and a relatively small team of 70, Snapchat had some money to burn.