Fueled by mobile madness, Appcelerator acquires Cocoafish

As long as consumers are crazy about mobile apps, developers will build them — and as long as developers are cranking out mobile apps, companies like Appcelerator will continue to flourish and snap up companies like Cocoafish.

In a nutshell, both Cocoafish and Appcelerator are in the business of making mobile development a lot easier, and the latter has just announced its acquisition of the former. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Appcelerator … Continue Reading

LinkedIn reportedly buying contact manager Rapportive

Business social-media giant LinkedIn is acquiring Rapportive, a Gmail add-on that enhances contact information.

Sources close to the negotiation disclosed the news and said that LinkedIn is paying over $10 million to buy the company, All Things D reported. The final purchase price is undisclosed, no deal has been finalized, and both companies are keeping quiet about the details. VentureBeat reached out to Rapportive’s chief executive Rahul Vohra for comment and didn’t get a response.… Continue Reading

Groupon acquires e-commerce ‘big data’ startup Adku

Group deals company Groupon has acquired e-commerce data firm Adku for an undisclosed price, the startup announced today.

Adku provides a service that attempts to “optimize” a person’s shopping experience by providing product suggestions on sites like Zappos, eBay, and Amazon. It does this by using various data about each shopper such as location and hot news trends.

The startup was founded by three former Google engineers and has remained in stealth-mode since it launched … Continue Reading

People-hiring service TaskRabbit acquires service-auctioning site SkillSlate

TaskRabbit, a San Francisco-based startup that lets you hire people to do simple tasks like wait in line to pick up your dry cleaning, has acquired SkillSlate, a New York-based startup that lets you auction your skills, services and time.

It’s a match made in heaven, and we wish these crazy kids the best.

The two services, while complementary, are not identical, so bringing the SkillSlate product and team into the fold will also allow … Continue Reading

Last year’s deals: 2011 saw fewer exits, younger companies & more money

Mergers, acquisitions and IPOs for venture-backed startups were down in 2011 by some metrics and up by others.

Overall, the year saw a 14 percent drop in deal activity between 2010 and 2011. Dow Jones VentureSource‘s data shows 522 total exits for the year — that’s 69 deals fewer than in 2010.

However, companies in 2011 were exiting earlier than yesteryear’s counterparts. They took less capital along the way, and they also generated more money … Continue Reading

Alibaba preps for possible Yahoo takeover by hiring U.S. legal eagles

Asian web powerhouse Alibaba has taken yet another step toward snatching up Yahoo.

The Chinese company has hired a Washington, DC-based lobby firm and a law firm specializing in cross-border mergers and acquisitions — likely a necessary step in the foreign, censorship-heavy entity’s plan to take over a major U.S. corporation.

Alibaba has hired the Duberstein Group, an independent strategic political planning and consulting company headed by Kenneth Duberstein (pictured), Reuters reports. Duberstein is a … Continue Reading

Amazon acquires the talented team at shopping startup Quorus

Amazon has bought Quorus, a shopping startup focusing on bringing social interactions and conversations into e-commerce. The deal seems to have been completed in November 2011.

The acquisition, which may be a talent grab, brings Quorus co-founders Michael Dougherty (pictured) and Sameer Rayachoti into the Amazon fold.

Currently, all Quorus employees are now working at Amazon, we’ve learned from an anonymous source with close ties to the deal.

While the team can’t comment on what … Continue Reading

Groupon may have acquired stealth startup Campfire Labs

Daily deals company Groupon has reportedly snatched up Campfire Labs, a still-in-stealth social-media startup based in San Francisco.

The acquisition is thought to be a talent grab. The Campfire Labs team includes Sakina Arsiwala, Sebastian Heycke, Shruti Challa and Naveen Koorakula.

TechCrunch’s Robin Wauters noticed that Groupon now controls the CampfireLabs.com web domain.

Campfire co-founder and engineer Arsiwala was previously YouTube’s Head of International at Google. Before that, she was a product lead for Google … Continue Reading

Google buys Alfred app creator Clever Sense

Google has acquired mobile app maker Clever Sense, the companies announced today.

Clever Sense is known for producing the popular recommendation mobile app Alfred, a robotic concierge that acts as a Pandora for real life. Unlike many web apps that rely on data, Alfred learns your tastes by discovering patterns Recently, the company released a new version of the app that adds the ability to perform group recommendations. The app is expected to remain functional … Continue Reading

Early checkout: Travel startup Topguest acquired by ezRez

Topguest, a San Francisco-based startup focused on loyalty programs and travel, has been acquired by ezRez Software, Inc.

As exits go, this one was pretty speedy: The startup was giving sneak peeks of its still-in-beta software just 18 months ago.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquiring company, ezRez, provides SaaS products for travel companies and financial institutions to help them engage with high-value customers.

Topguest works with loyalty and rewards programs … Continue Reading

Google’s Motorola Mobility acquisition halted by EU regulators

Google’s proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility has hit a roadblock, courtesy of European Union regulators.

EU investigators have been reviewing the deal for some time, but they are suspending that review to gather more information about the proposal and determine whether or not such an acquisition would harm competition between manufacturers of Android smartphones and other devices.

“The European Commission has asked for more information, which is routine, while they review our Motorola Mobility acquisition,” … Continue Reading

Netflix and Verizon may be in acquisition talks

Verizon may be preparing to acquire Netflix with the end goal of offering its own streaming video service.

Verizon is looking to launch its own streaming video offering as early as next year, according to anonymous sources close to the deal.

According to subscription-based financial reporting site dealReporter, Verizon will be teaming with Netflix rather than competing with it. While we’ve known that Verizon is interested in purchasing a pre-existing streaming media service, we had … Continue Reading

GitHub acquires Ordered List, adopts its pretty product lineup

Code host GitHub has acquired dev shop Ordered List, hired all its employees and adopted the company’s entire product line as its own.

It’s just a love-fest out there today, people.

And given the developer-focused products Ordered List makes (and the modern-web aesthetic of its design staff), the company seems like a pretty good fit for GitHub, a popular code-hosting and collaboration service unparalleled in popularity amongst developers, especially those of the open-source stripe.

“We’ve … Continue Reading

Updated: Gowalla CEO tells staff Facebook deal is in “holding pattern”

Update: Soon after this posted, Gowalla announced it is, indeed, being bought by Facebook in a blog post by chief executive Josh Williams. You can find the announcement here.

Location-based social network Gowalla‘s chief executive Josh Williams may not have given the official word that the company is being bought by Facebook, but a letter to his employees doesn’t exactly convey a red light.

Last week, an unnamed source leaked information about the deal … Continue Reading

Google’s Motorola Mobility acquisition will get a decision from EU in January

Regulators in the European Commission will give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility sometime in January 2012.

Google must get the approval of both U.S. and EU officials before the acquisition can be completed. Since the deal would put the search giant into a particularly close relationship with an Android manufacturer — one of many such OEMs — anti-trust concerns hang in the balance.

EU officials have set a provisional deadline … Continue Reading

Twitter acquires Android security startup Whisper Systems

Android security startup Whisper Systems has been acquired by Twitter, the startup announced on its blog today.

Whisper Systems, which total employees consist of only Moxie Marlinspike and Stuart Anderson, focuses on Android security for enterprise customers. As VentureBeat previously reported, the startup originally focused on creating a way for people to use Google and other systems without being tracked. The company is well-known for its RedPhone service, which creates encrypted phone calls so no … Continue Reading

Motorola Mobility shareholders vote yes on a buy-out by Google

Motorola Mobility shareholders voted today to allow Google to buy the mobile company.

With approximately 99 percent of shares voting in favor of the deal at today’s special meeting, this acquisition now must pass U.S. government inspection.

Google announced its intention to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion back in August of this year. The proposed deal has seen its share of twists and turns.

One stipulation of the acquisition was that if the deal … Continue Reading

Katango, after help from Facebook, gets acquired by Google

Would Google+ be a better social network if it were capable of auto-sorting your contacts into Circles? We might soon find out, because Google has acquired Katango, a maker of technologies to auto-organize friends into groups.

“Katango was founded a little over a year ago to develop social algorithms that improve people’s online social interaction,” the startup announced on its website Thursday. “We’re excited to join the Google+ team and carry on fulfilling that mission.”… Continue Reading

Kobo acquired: Japanese web retailer Rakuten paid $315M cash

Rakuten, the largest online shopping mall operator in Japan, has acquired e-reader manufacturer Kobo for $315 million in cash.

In the deal, Rakuten has bought 100 percent of all issued and outstanding shares of Kobo, which makes products that compete with Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Amazon’s Kindle product lines.

Around fifty-eight percent of Kobo was owned by Indigo Books & Music, a Canadian retail bookstore chain. Indigo chief executive Heather Reisman said today that … Continue Reading

BuyWithMe bought by Gilt (confirmed)

Struggling daily deals site BuyWithMe has been scooped into the shopping cart of Gilt City, a subsidiary of flash-sales business Gilt Groupe.

Once the initial transition period has concluded, the BuyWithMe brand will be retired permanently and its customers absorbed into the Gilt fold.

Gilt City is the local, daily-deals arm of the luxe-focused Gilt Groupe. Gilt City’s areas of consumer focus include clothing for all genders and ages, interior design, travel and gourmet food … Continue Reading