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Lyft that it has acquired augmented reality startup . The ridesharing company, which has its eyes set on an IPO in 2019, said the London-based startup will 鈥渂ecome the UK hub for Lyft鈥檚 Level 5 self-driving division.鈥�

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Blue Vision Labs was founded in 2016 and has developed precise, collaborative augmented reality software. According to TechCrunch鈥檚of the company, the technology 鈥渃an pinpoint people and other moving objects in a space to within centimeters of their actual location.鈥� It鈥檚 easy to see how this technology could benefit Lyft鈥檚 self-driving cars, particularly given the of the safety of self-driving vehicles.

The company raised a known total of in venture funding before the acquisition, per Crunchbase, and is backed by , as well as , , and . Blue Vision Labs is being acquired at around $72 million with the potential for the deal to reach over $100 million, according to .

Lyft first announced its self-driving division in, and this is the company鈥檚 first acquisition in the space. The company鈥檚 main competitor in the ridesharing industry–– has a (money burning) autonomous vehicle division of its own. Uber itself has acquired two startups in the space, including geospatial software company , and the more controversial autonomous truck startup Otto in August 2016 (which ).

But Uber isn鈥檛 the only company Lyft is up against. It also has to battle Google鈥檚 , GM鈥檚 , s initiative, and a host of autonomous vehicle startups including . Buying a company with software that can help its cars avoid crashing into things, particularly people, is probably a good bet.

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