Yahoo Buys Social-Browser Maker "RockMelt" To Bolster Mobile Division

Yahoo Buys "RockMelt" Browser To Bolster Mobile Division

Yahoo Inc acquired social Web browser company Rockmelt, the latest move by the struggling Web portal to scoop up technology and engineering talent that could bolster its mobile and social networking efforts.

Terms of the deal announced on Friday weren't disclosed. It's the 20th acquisition that Yahoo Inc. has completed since Marissa Mayer became the Sunnyvale, California, company's CEO nearly 13 months ago.

“The parallels between Yahoo! and Rockmelt are obvious: we share a common goal to help people discover the best personalized content from around the web,” said Yahoo product heads Mike Kerns and Adam Cahan in a company blog post.

“The team has built a simple and beautiful technology that combines social, personalization and discovery to help you not only find what you’re looking for, but also stumble across some cool stuff along the way,” Kerns and Cahan wrote.

Rockmelt's Facebook-focused Web browser, which was launched in 2010, integrated social networking features directly within the browser, allowing users to send Facebook messages and browse Twitter postings. The browser never gained enough of a following to challenge the larger Web browsers such as Google Inc's Chrome and Microsoft Corp's Internet Explorer.

Over the past year, the company shifted its efforts to focus strictly on the mobile version of its product.

The deal represents the 21st acquisition by Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer. Most of the deals have been smaller transactions to acquire engineering talent. Yahoo's biggest deal was the USD 1.1 billion acquisition of blogging service Tumblr in May.

Yahoo's biggest deal was the USD 1.1 billion acquisition of blogging service Tumblr in May

Yahoo is among the world's most popular online properties, with hundreds of millions of monthly visitors, but its revenue growth has stalled as consumers and advertisers flock to Facebook, Google and other Web destinations.

Yahoo will shut down the existing RockMelt product in 30 days and integrate the technology into Yahoo's media platform to "deliver content in new ways," a yahoo spokeswoman said.

RockMelt raised roughly USD 40 million in funding from venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners and Khosla Partners.

Yahoo will get 32 RockMelt employees as part of the deal, including RockMelt CEO Eric Vishria , who will become Vice President of products for Yahoo's media properties and RockMelt CTO Tim Howes, who will become Vice President of engineering for Yahoo's mobile products, according to the source.