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Rediff News  All News  » Business » Google buys Wavii for $30 million, mirroring Yahoo's deal

Google buys Wavii for $30 million, mirroring Yahoo's deal

April 24, 2013 08:32 IST


Google's successful bid came after Apple Inc had expressed interest in buying Wavii to incorporate the startup's natural language technology into Siri, Apple's voice-activated personal assistant feature, said the person, who declined to be named because the deal has not been publicly announced.

Google and Wavii declined to comment.

Google's purchase comes several weeks after Yahoo Inc paid a similar amount to acquire Summly, the news reader and Wavii competitor founded by 18-year-old Nick D'Aloisio in London.

The deals have taken out of play two small companies that sought to enhance how consumer experience news -- a significant concern for Google and Yahoo, which both maintain highly trafficked news sites.

In separate interviews last year, Wavii founder Adrian Aoun and D'Aloisio acknowledged the competition between the two startups.

D'Aloisio touted Summly's superior user interface, which condenses articles into several easy-to-read paragraphs. Aoun played up his app's technology, including a proprietary algorithm that boiled down complex news stories into sentences of just a few words.


Most of the startup's employees are expected to relocate to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California.

News of the acquisition was first reported by Techcrunch.

Image: The entrance to the kitchen is seen at the new Google office in Toronto. | Photograph: Mark Blinch/Reuters

Gerry Shih in San Francisco