Apple acquisition of PrimeSense close but not done yet: Report

The Calcalist financial newspaper reported on Sunday that Apple has bought PrimeSense, an Israeli maker of chips that enable three-dimensional (3D) machine vision, for $345 million.

Now, a report by AllThingsD confirms that Apple is in talks to buy 3-D sensing company PrimeSense, but citing its own sources the publication says that the deal is not yet done, and that its reported valuation would not represent a huge win for investors. The report further says that the deal is "close" but "hung up on end-game issues like liquidity preferences - in other words, who gets paid first"

PrimeSense has raised $85 million from Israeli and U.S. venture capital funds such as Canaan Partners Global, Gemini Israel and Genesis Partners, Calcalist said.

"We are focused on building a prosperous company while bringing 3D sensing and natural interaction to the mass market in a variety of markets such as interactive living room and mobile devices," a spokeswoman for PrimeSense said. "We do not comment on what any of our partners, customers or potential customers are doing and we do not relate to rumours or recycled rumours."

PrimeSense's sensing technology, which gives digital devices the ability to observe a scene in three dimensions, was used to help power Kinect in Microsoft's Xbox gaming console, when the technology made its debut. However, Microsoft used homegrown technology for the new Kinect that is part of Xbox One.

The acquisition of PrimeSense would be Apple's second purchase of an Israeli company. It bought flash storage chip maker Anobit in January 2012.

With inputs from Reuters