Facebook Buys Belarusian Company

On March 9, Facebook bought Masquerade, a Belarusian company behind the popular face swapping application MSQRD. The statement that appeared on the Masquerade website says that the company is 'excited to join forces with Facebook and bring the technology to even more people'.

The founders of MSQRD, Eugene Nevgen, Sergey Gonchar, and Eugene Zatepyakin, will relocate to Facebook's London office. Facebook declined to comment on how much it paid for Masquerade.

According to Eugene Nevgen, the company's CEO, as a result of the deal, Masquerade will be able to bring its technology to the audience of Facebook, which is approximately 1.6 billion people. While Masquerade will be partnering with Facebook to integrate their technology, the app will stay 'up and running'.

Nevgen thanked Masquerade's investors, Yuri Gurski and Gagarin Capital, for their support.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, made a funny video, wearing a 'mask' of Iron Man to acknowledge the acquisition of Masquerade.

MSQRD is a hit application launched in the middle of December 2015. It was created for Garage48 Minsk 2015 hackathon. On December 22, it entered Top 50 of the Belarusian App Store. MSQRD quickly gathered more than a million downloads worldwide and was featured by Apple in its Best Apps section. By February 23, it occupied the fourth position in the American App Store. International celebrities, including Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Kimmel, shared their videos in 'masks'.

On March 3, Bloomberg featured MSQRD in an article that analyzed the popularity of the application.

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