Snap Inc. (NYSE:$SNAP) has been doing two things as of late: A) making business decisions outside of the public eye, and B) increasing its European presence. We now know that the California-based company has quietly acquired the team behind Swiss startup Strong.Codes, which is a company that manufactures tools that cloud software code and make it harder for rivals to copy.
Towards the start of 2017, Snap hired Laurent Balmelli, the engineer who co-founded Strong.Codes. The rest of the team has since joined Balmelli, according to a person close to the move. The new hires will continue to work in Switzerland.
Aside from the latest acquisition, Snap has been working on increasing its European presence in other ways. For instance, Snap has placed advertisements in Switzerland that state that the company is looking to hire information security experts and cryptographers. As of right now, Snap is one of the lead sponsors at Black Alps 17, and in May hired Facebook’s (NASDAQ:$FB) Marianne Bullwinkel as country manager for Switzerland, Austria, and Germany.
Essentially, the point of the acquisition is this: Snap Inc. faces a tremendous amount of risk on its Snapchat app due to Facebook’s Instagram and it’s copying of Snapchat features. Therefore, Strong.Codes will be able to protect against reverse engineering which is when a company will take apart a product in order to learn how to rebuild or copy it.
A spokesperson from Snap Inc. has refused to comment on the acquisition.
Featured Image: twitter
