Robotics startup Mecka AI buys social app Thirdspace for mobile user acquisition

Mecka AI, a Toronto and New York-based startup focused on supplying training data for real-world robots, has completed an acquihire by purchasing Ottawa’s Thirdspace. The social mobile app, which functions as a mix between BeReal, Instagram, and Snapchat, was acquired to provide Mecka with essential expertise in achieving viral user growth.

Mecka’s leadership noted that Thirdspace’s ability to achieve organic growth is crucial because scaling the mobile application is imperative to hitting these data collection goals. The founders of Thirdspace, Cedric Osagie and Eshan Betrabet, have joined Mecka as heads of mobile capture, bringing their experience in deploying viral formats and leveraging user-generated content directly into Mecka’s strategy.

The move follows Mecka's recent $60 million USD Series B funding round from investors including Sequoia Capital, Nvidia, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Samsung. The acquisition signals a strategic pivot: the robotics data firm is integrating consumer marketing playbooks to solve its most significant bottleneck, user adoption for massive-scale mobile data collection.

The founders of Thirdspace emphasized that their approach represents a unique application in the robotics realm, acting as 'growth hackers' on a traditional consumer product model. This suggests Mecka views the acquisition not just as intellectual property but as an operational blueprint for reaching mass scale.