Belarusian MSQRD among top free apps on App Store

The Belarusian application MSQRD (Masquerade) topped the App Store list of free applications in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and some other countries.

The app has already hit 220,000 downloads. With the help of the main and front cameras, a smart phone user can change the way he looks beyond recognition, make a selfie or shoot a video.

The app changes the way you look by adding animal faces, masks, makeup, emotions, huge eyes, eyebrows or moustaches. The app went viral just weeks after its release. The Belarusian app developers say they invested nothing to promote the application.
 
The app has been used by famous people, which, among other things, contributed to its popularity. In Russia the MSQRD-videos were uploaded by famous rapper Basta | Noggano and the lead singer of the Chai Vdvoem band Stas Kostyushkin who tried on the image of the Eurovision winner.

Now the MSQRD creators are designing new filters and an application for Android. The founders of the Masquerade project have been working on the face tracking technology for five years already. The MSQRD app designed in just 48 hours during the Garage48 Minsk hackathon at the end of November 2015 is one of the tools in the ecosystem on which Masquerade has been working.

Today the project involves 11 people, 8 of whom are based in Belarus. The MSQRD app first appeared in the App Store in early December. About 5,000 people downloaded it during the first four days. On 22 December the project came up on Product Hunt, a large aggregator site for startups. Masquerade is a technological answer to the emotional needs of people,” dev.by quoted Yuri Gursky, a business mentor of the project, as saying.