Twitter Has Acquired London-Based Group Chat App Sphere

In an effort to compete with Facebook’s continuously growing metaverse, Twitter is now branching out its own range of services by acquiring the London-based group chat app Sphere.

Founded by Tomas Halgas and Nick D’Aloisio, who also created the news summary app Summly, Sphere focuses on building communities through chat rooms and spaces designed for people who share the same interests. The startup has previously reportedly raised upwards of $30 million USD across three rounds of funding, although the specific terms and figures of its acquisition by Twitter have not been made public.

“It’s been a long and exciting journey to this point,” reads a blog post from Sphere announcing the acquisition. “Like many startups, Sphere started with a very different mission — to help anyone find and share knowledge instantly through the creation of a ‘global brain.’ We originally built a marketplace of paid experts from all around the world, connecting them through group chat.”

It continued: “What we realized is that some of the most helpful and knowledgeable conversations came from groups where members felt a strong sense of belonging to one another. In other words, at the heart of our challenge was helping every single person find their community. The opportunity is massive.”

With the new deal, Sphere will begin dialing down on its independent app and bring over roughly 20 staff members to Twitter.

Elsewhere in tech, cryptocurrency exchange FTX has reached a valuation of $25 billion USD.