The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has initiated an in-depth investigation of Meta Platform Inc's $400 million deal for the developer of Supernatural, a virtual reality VR based fitness app, a move that is expected to slow down its completion, the news portal The Information reported on Thursday.
Meta may not be able to finalize the acquisition for another year after FTC started a probe that started shortly after Thanksgiving Day last month, according to the report. Two people with knowledge of the situation are cited in the report.
The investigation on Meta's Supernatural deal appears to be part of FTC Chair Lina Khan's mission to make sure big technology companies don't shut out the next generation of competitors in emerging computing platforms.
Meta and FTC did not respond to Reuters' request for comment outside business hours.
On October 28th, Facebook changed its name to Meta as it planned to focus on VR and build the metaverse, a shared virtual environment that it bets will be the successor to the mobile internet.
Meta has invested heavily in virtual and augmented reality, developing hardware including its Oculus VR headsets, and is working on AR glasses and wristband technologies, and has bought a lot of VR gaming studios, including BigBox VR.