MSQRD (the application for a selfie)

MSQRD (reduction from Masquerade — the company name, developed a product) is the application developed by the Belarusian company Masquerade Technologies. In this program the user can bind the photo and then change its type and share with friends on Facebook or Instagram. It is also possible to select a mask filter or effect which lies in library. The application uses augmented reality (AR) of display for masks.

2020: Project closure

In the middle of March, 2020 Facebook announced closing of the project MSQRD. The corresponding application will be deleted from shops App Store and Google Play, but the developments used there, including filters and masks, found application in other Facebook services, such as Facebook social network Instagram, Facebook Messenger and Portal.

Facebook announced closing of the MSQRD project

Since April 13 we close MSQRD. Our purpose — to provide the greatest possible experience for the people using our services … When in 2016 the application became a part of Facebook, technologies of photofilters only began to appear. Now we are concentrated on providing the best opportunities of AR to you by means of the Spark AR platform which allows any user to create own AR effects and to share them with other associates of Facebook, says Facebook.

At the same time in the company promised to continue development of MSQRD by means of further integration of technologies of the Belarusian startup in own products.^[1]

2016: Facebook purchased MSQRD

In March, 2016 Facebook announced purchase of MSQRD. The price of the transaction was not set. At that time at the application was 1 million users to the CIS and 35 million users worldwide.

2015: Application launch

The MSQRD application in November, 2015 was started by Evgeny Nevgen, Sergey Gonchar and Evgeny Zatepyakin. The founder of Gagarin Capital Nikolay Davydov and the former vice president of Mail.ru Group Yury Gursky were investors of a startup.

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Notes