Less than four months after being launched by Imperial College, GraphicsFuzz has been acquired by Google and will be integrated into the Android Graphics Team.
GraphicsFuzz, a UK-based graphics driver testing technology spun out of Imperial College London, was acquired by Google, the internet subsidiary of diversified conglomerate Alphabet, yesterday.
Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Founded in December 2017 before being officially launched in April 2018, GraphicsFuzz has developed technology to automatically and quickly identify and fix security bugs in graphics drivers.
The graphics driver is the software that controls the graphics card. Together, they are primarily responsible for the computer display, though the card is also used to process tasks such as encoding video files.
The technology is based on research by the Multicore Programming Group, led by Alastair Donaldson, a lecturer in the department of computing. Donaldson co-founded the spinout with his PhD research candidates, Hugues Evrard and Paul Thomson.
GraphicsFuzz was one of the first two spinouts to rely on Imperial College’s Founders Choice program, created in August 2017 to allow academics to retain up to 95% of founding equity in their spinout.
Donaldson, director of GraphicsFuzz, said: “The acquisition by Google is a fantastic opportunity to maximise the worldwide impact of our graphics driver testing technology.”
Lamia Baker, senior licensing executive at tech transfer office Imperial Innovations, said: “The technology developed by GraphicsFuzz helps graphics technology vendors to build more reliable products, which is in high demand in today’s technology-driven world.
“This acquisition is an endorsement of the company’s progress, as well as a unique opportunity for GraphicsFuzz to have a positive impact in one of the world’s leading mobile operating systems.”