Blippar finds life after death as former investor buys assets to relaunch AR startup

Blippar seems to have avoided a total collapse following its dramatic descent into administration after it failed to pull together an emergency funding deal.

One of the AR startup’s main investors, Candy Ventures, has acquired the company’s assets in a patent sale and will be keeping the brand alive underneath the leadership of founder Ambarish Mitra and “many of Blippar’s original key engineers.”

Blippar may have blown up in dramatic fashion, burning through more than $130 million in funding for its dream of building an augmented reality empire, but it seems the new startup will continue to focus on its old haunts, namely Blippbuilder, its SaaS AR creation platform. The company devoted significant efforts to capturing the consumer markets after achieving some success with their enterprise-focused platform; it’s likely that a reborn Blippar will strip down its efforts.

At one point, the startup had more than 300 employees and claimed a $1.5 billion valuation.

Candy Ventures is a U.K.-based portfolio of companies and investments led by property tycoon Nick Candy. The firm led Blippar’s $37 million Series E in September and seems to have bought into the company’s broader mission.

“Rish and the team built a great business which had to adapt to the challenges of a constantly-evolving industry. With the right application of its powerful AR technology, there is huge potential for the new company to drive innovation in AR and position itself at the forefront of the industry,” a spokesperson for Candy Ventures wrote in a statement.