Snap Inc.

Snap Inc.
Information
Type	Public company
Industry	Social media, Consumer electronics, Augmented reality
Founded	September 16, 2011
Founder	Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, Reggie Brown
Headquarters	Santa Monica, California, United States
Notable Personnel	Evan Spiegel (Co-founder and CEO), Bobby Murphy (Co-founder and CTO)
Products	Snapchat, Spectacles, Lens Studio, Snap OS, Bitmoji
Website	https://www.snap.com

Snap Inc. is an American technology company best known for the Snapchat messaging app and for its line of Augmented Reality glasses sold under the Spectacles and Specs names. The company describes itself as a camera company. It was founded on September 16, 2011, by Stanford University students Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.

The business launched in 2011 as Snapchat Inc. and was renamed Snap Inc. on September 24, 2016, to bring its first hardware product, the original Snap Spectacles camera glasses, under a single corporate name. Snap went public on March 2, 2017, trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SNAP after pricing its initial public offering at 17 US dollars per share.

Snap's relevance to Augmented Reality runs through two products: Lens Studio, a desktop tool that lets anyone build AR effects called Lenses, and the Spectacles glasses, which evolved from simple camera eyewear in 2016 into standalone AR glasses by 2024. In June 2025 the company said it would release consumer AR glasses, branded Specs, in 2026.

History

Founding and Snapchat

The idea behind Snapchat began at Stanford University in 2011, when Reggie Brown suggested an app for sending photos that disappear after they are viewed. Brown, Evan Spiegel, and Bobby Murphy built the app, which first shipped in July 2011 as Picaboo before being renamed Snapchat later that year. Brown left the company early on and later settled a legal dispute over his role as a co-founder. Spiegel became chief executive and Murphy chief technology officer, positions both still held in 2026.

Snap acquired several companies that fed into its later AR work, including Looksery in 2015, whose facial-recognition technology underpinned Snapchat's selfie Lenses, and Bitstrips, the maker of the Bitmoji avatar product, in 2016.

Renaming and IPO

On September 24, 2016, the company changed its name from Snapchat Inc. to Snap Inc. and at the same time announced its first piece of hardware, the original Spectacles. Spiegel framed the rename around the company being a camera company rather than only a messaging app. Five months later, on March 2, 2017, Snap completed its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. The IPO priced at 17 US dollars per share, above its expected range, and the stock rose about 44 percent on its first trading day.

Spectacles

Spectacles is Snap's line of smart glasses. The first three generations were camera glasses that recorded video for Snapchat; the fourth generation, in 2021, added a built-in Augmented Reality display, and the line has continued as standalone AR glasses since.

Generation	Released	Type	Notes
Snap Spectacles (1st gen)	November 2016	Camera glasses	First Snap hardware; recorded short first-person video for Snapchat; priced at 129.99 US dollars and sold through "Snapbot" vending machines
Snap Spectacles 2	April 2018	Camera glasses	Water-resistant redesign with improved photo and video capture
Snap Spectacles 3	November 2019	Camera glasses	Dual HD cameras for stereoscopic 3D capture; stainless steel frames
Snap Spectacles 4 (2021)	May 2021	AR glasses (developer)	First Spectacles with a built-in display; dual waveguide AR optics with a 26.3-degree diagonal field of view; not sold to the public
Snap Spectacles 2024 (5th gen)	September 17, 2024	Standalone AR glasses (developer)	Runs Snap OS with hand and voice control; offered through a developer program at 99 US dollars per month
Specs	Planned 2026	Consumer AR glasses	Smaller, lighter consumer model announced June 10, 2025

Spectacles (2024)

The fifth-generation Spectacles, announced on September 17, 2024, are see-through standalone AR glasses, meaning they run without a tethered phone or PC. They weigh 226 grams and use dual Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) micro-projectors feeding stereo waveguide displays with a 46-degree diagonal field of view and an auto-tinting layer for outdoor use. The glasses run on two Qualcomm Snapdragon processors and carry four cameras that drive Hand tracking and a spatial engine for six degrees of freedom positional tracking; continuous standalone battery life is about 45 minutes. Snap distributed the 2024 Spectacles only to developers through a program priced at 99 US dollars per month with a one-year commitment, rather than selling them at retail.

Specs (2026)

At the Augmented World Expo on June 10, 2025, Snap said it would release a consumer version of its AR glasses, called Specs, in 2026. Spiegel described the planned device as having a much smaller form factor at a fraction of the weight of the 2024 Spectacles, while adding more capability. Snap said the product represents 11 years of development and more than 3 billion US dollars of investment. Alongside the announcement Snap detailed Snap OS updates, including integrations with OpenAI and Google's Gemini models for AI-powered Lenses, and a partnership with Niantic Spatial to use its Visual Positioning System for location-based experiences.

Lens Studio and Snap OS

Lens Studio is a free desktop application for Windows and macOS that Snap released on December 14, 2017. It lets creators, agencies, and developers build Augmented Reality effects, called Lenses, using templates, 2D and 3D assets, and a scripting interface, then publish them to Snapchat. Snap has said more than four million Lenses have been created with the tool by over 400,000 creators. The same projects can target Snapchat on phones, third-party apps through Snap's Camera Kit, and the Spectacles AR glasses.

Snap OS is the operating system that runs on the 2024 Spectacles and the planned Specs. Snap built it specifically for AR glasses, with hand and voice navigation and low-latency rendering of Lenses in three dimensions.

Current status

As of mid-2026, Snap Inc. remains a publicly traded company led by co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, with its main business in the Snapchat app and a continuing investment in Augmented Reality hardware and software. The 2024 Spectacles are available only to developers, and the consumer Specs glasses are scheduled for release during 2026.