It’s another exit via acquisition for serial founder Raven Zachary. His latest company — the Microsoft Hololens agency he helped cofound, Object Theory — has been acquired by ARound. Small Society, the iOS development shop Raven cofounded prior to Object Theory — a preeminent player in the then burgeoning Portland mobile scene — was acquired by Walmart Labs in 2012.
Raven shared the news in a LinkedIn update:
I’m excited to announce that ARound (https://aroundar.com), a Stagwell company, has acquired Object Theory. ARound helps venues and retailers rapidly build, deploy, and manage augmented reality experiences connected to their live events. Myself, Dustin Maertz, and Christopher Ellis have joined ARound as part of the acquisition. I will be remaining in Portland, although for the time being, in a work-from-home capacity, as many of you are during the pandemic. Thank you to Paul Reynolds for making the introduction to Josh Beatty as we evaluated various acquisition opportunities.
Stagwell is the same company that owns a majority share of Instrument and Allison+Partners in Portland. Other well-known Stagwell companies include The Harris Poll, Crispin Porter Bogusky, Assembly, and YML (+ many more).
It’s been a great 6.5 years working with Microsoft on enterprise mixed reality applications for HoloLens. The journey with HoloLens continues for Object Theory alumni Michael Hoffman, Ally Kaiser, Amy Hillman (she/her), and Michael House, who are now all full-time at Microsoft.
The company announced it was suspending operations and seeking an aquirer in August of this year.
For more information on the acquiring company, visit ARound.
