On Tuesday, February 24, 2026, details from a European Union regulatory filing revealed that Apple has quietly acquired Invrs.io, a specialized one-person AI startup focused on the field of photonics (the science of light).
While the transaction actually took place in October 2025, it only became public this week following the conclusion of a standard four-month regulatory review period by the European Commission.
The “Acqui-hire”: Who is Martin Schubert?
The acquisition is essentially a strategic hire of the startup’s founder and sole employee, Martin Schubert. Schubert is a heavyweight in the optical design world with an impressive pedigree:
- Experience: Over 15 years in the semiconductor industry, including senior research roles at Meta, Google (Alphabet’s X), and Micron.
- Intellectual Property: He holds nearly 100 issued patents and has authored 40 peer-reviewed papers on advanced display and chip technologies.
- The Startup: He founded Invrs.io in 2023 to develop open-source frameworks for AI-guided photonics design.
What is Invrs.io’s Technology?
Invrs.io specialized in building tools that use AI to simulate and optimize how light behaves within complex physical structures.
- Simulation Challenges: The company provided standardized “design challenges” and a public leaderboard for researchers to benchmark AI-driven optical designs.
- Inverse Design: Schubert’s expertise is in “inverse design”—a method where you tell the AI the light behavior you want (e.g., “I want this lens to focus light in this exact way”), and the AI works backward to design the physical structure needed to achieve it.
Why Apple Bought It
The acquisition signals Apple’s intent to move AI deeper into the physical hardware of its devices. By bringing these AI-guided optics tools in-house, Apple can accelerate the development of:
- Apple Vision Pro: Optimizing the complex pancake lenses and micro-OLED displays to be thinner and clearer.
- Next-Gen Sensors: Improving LiDAR scanners and FaceID sensors for better spatial awareness.
- Camera Systems: Designing more compact, high-performance lens elements for future iPhones.
- Data Centers: Photonics is critical for the high-speed optical interconnects that link AI chips together in Apple’s private clouds.
Context: Apple’s M&A Strategy
This “micro-acquisition” stands in stark contrast to Apple’s other recent move: the $2 billion acquisition of Q.ai (an Israeli audio AI startup) in January 2026.
By snapping up a one-person startup like Invrs.io, Apple is following its classic “string of pearls” strategy—buying small, highly specialized teams that can be easily integrated into top-secret hardware projects without the friction of a large corporate merger.
