Kevin Bostic
Natural language processing startup Wavii confirmed on Friday that it has been acquired by Google, and some sources report that the search giant bought the startup from under Apple for more than $30 million.
Wavii's team photo
Wavii confirmed the acquisition in on the company web page on Friday, noting that the Wavii service as it currently exists will be shut down. Wavii's team and technology, it is expected, will be integrated into Google's operations "in ways that may be useful to millions of people around the world," according to CEO Adrian Aoun.
Earlier reports had Wavii's technology being merged with Google's Knowledge Graph, a database of hundreds of millions of people, places, and things.
The acquisition price was north of $30 million earlier this week when The Wall Street Journal first reported on the impending deal.
Google and Apple had both been bidding for Wavii, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. Google wanted Wavii to improve its search capabilities, while Apple is said to have wanted to tie Wavii's tech into Apple's Siri digital assistant.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
20 Comments
Another one of those products overvalued and overly hyped. It's never peaked my interest to use. A personalized news feeder for $30 million. True innovation I tell ya!
Hilarious waste of capital.
From the team photo, looks like they'd be better suited to join Microsoft.
Or maybe it's a sign that Google's going to compete therewith.
Google bought this only to stop Wavii from going into the hands of Apple.
The Silicon Valley venture capital play... "Spread rumor that Apple is trying to buy you. Waiting for phone call that shows GOOGLE on the caller ID"... Most of the start up companies in the "cloud hype" world really will not make Google or anyone else much money in the long run. Once the cloud / social media hype dies down as companies figure out the true costs & benefits the VC crowd and the tech media will have to find something else to hype. Congrats to the Wavii kids for figuring out that Google will hand out money so easily.
Just do a "jazz hands" gesture and it searches for you?