The following is part of our Enterprise xR Intelligence Service, which includes forecasts, data, and key insights about the use of virtual and augmented reality in the select industrial and enterprise sectors.

After internal struggles put its latest round of emergency funding in jeopardy, AR startup Blippar has gone into administration. An external firm will handle the selling off of the company’s assets, and likely lay off all its 100+ employees. As the last major development in the xR industry in 2018, the story has made waves in the greater tech space, propelled in part by the company’s long history of troubles and internal strife.

While it would be easy to take Blippar’s failure as a broad strokes indicator of the health of AR overall, there are several extenuating circumstances in Blippar’s case that can both explain how such a unicorn could fall, as well as provide industry stakeholders with important lessons on how to learn and adapt quickly to an ever-changing tech landscape.

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