Photonics research firm Invrs.io & its single employee acquired by Apple
A new filing has revealed that Apple purchased Invrs.io, acquiring its assets along with the sole equityholder, founder, and employee.Apple has acquired another AI startup — Invrs.ioFollowing Apple's acquisition of the audio-focused startup Q.ai in January 2026, it has been revealed that another, much smaller company has moved under the Apple umbrella.A notice on the European Commission website, spotted by MacRumors, says that the iPhone maker acquired the photonics research company Invrs.io, LLC back in October 2025. Photonics is the science and technology of generating, controlling, and detecting photons, or light particles. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
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Photonics research firm Invrs.io & its single employee acquired by Apple
[Image: Marko Zivkovic's profile picture]
Marko Zivkovic
Tue Feb 24 2026, 06:52 PM EST
1 minute read
Apple has acquired another AI startup -- Invrs.io
A new filing has revealed that Apple purchased Invrs.io, acquiring its assets along with the sole equityholder, founder, and employee.
Following Apple's acquisition of the audio-focused startup Q.ai in January 2026, it has been revealed that another, much smaller company has moved under the Apple umbrella.
A notice on the European Commission website, spotted by MacRumors, says that the iPhone maker acquired the photonics research company Invrs.io, LLC back in October 2025. Photonics is the science and technology of generating, controlling, and detecting photons, or light particles.
Invrs.io was founded in 2023 by Martin Schubert, who previously worked on inverse design programs at Google and Meta. Schubert appears to have been the only employee and equity holder of Invrs.io, which has since been acquired by Apple.
On his LinkedIn page, Schubert says he has more than fifteen years of experience in the semiconductor and technology industries. He also claims to have issued nearly a hundred patents, among other things.
While working at Google and Meta, he led AI-guided design projects, and his company, Invrs.io, had the same overall focus.
"Invrs.io aims to advance AI-guided design, focusing initially on optics— -a space critical for components in AR/VR, datacenters, autonomous vehicles, and beyond," says the company's GitHub page.
The European Commission website, meanwhile, explains that "Invrs develops open-source frameworks for photonics research, providing standardized simulation challenges and a public leaderboard for benchmarking and comparing design results."
While it remains to be seen exactly how the acquisition of Invrs.io will help Apple, the iPhone maker could leverage Schubert's expertise to improve its camera modules, image-processing hardware, or other components used in the Apple Vision Pro.
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[Original source](https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/02/24/photonics-research-firm-invrsio-its-single-employee-acquired-by-apple?utm_source=rss)