Top startup Aquisitions in The Month of April 2010

Most startups plan to be acquired by Google, Apple , Microsoft, or a big technology company as an exit strategy. Sometimes it works out the way the way the startup plans it. If you are not so lucky you cannot cash out as early as you expected. These companies may or may not have planned an exit strategy, but they have been acquired. Some of them have been in existence for a very long time, but April 2010 will forever be in the memories of the founders.

1. Salesforce.com announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Jigsaw , which provides crowd-sourced data services in the cloud, for approximately $142 million in cash, plus a performance-based earn out of up to 10% of the purchase price. Jigsaw provides business contact data using crowd-sourcing model .The company had raised $18 million in venture capital to date. Article published on Techrunch
2. Payment network operator Visa agreed to acquire e-payment company VCyberSource for $26 per share, or total consideration of approximately $2 billion to be paid with cash on hand. The price represents a near 34 percent premium over Mountain View-based CyberSource’s Tuesday closing price . CyberSource process about 25 percent of all e-commerce dollars transacted in the United States. Original Article published on Techcrunch

3. Agnilux, a stealth chip start-up in San Jose, California ,was added to Google’s chain of startup acquisitions. company spokesman confirmed the parties had reached a deal but provided no further details on one of Google’s more curious acquisitions in recent memory. Published on Cnet
4. Google also acquired Plink, makers of a visual search application for mobile devices called PlinkArt. The app “recognizes almost any work of art,” claims the app’s homepage, “just by taking a photo of it.” Article posted on ReadWriteWeb

   Check out the list of Google’s 66 Acquisitions as of April 2010.

5. Reed Hastings, the founder and chief executive of Netflix, used the Web to make it easier for us to rent movies. Now Mr. Hastings was believed to have arrangements for the acquisition of DreamBox Learning a start-up that uses online games to teach math. Article published by CLAIRE CAIN MILLER for the NY Times

6. Twitter Head of Mobile Partnerships Kevin Thau announced on an official blog post that the company has acquired Seattle-based Cloudhopper, which is a small startup that “powers some of the largest and most successful mobile messaging (SMS and MMS) campaigns in North America, Europe, and Africa.” Article published by Techcrunch
7. Facebook acquired the group photo-sharing startup Divvyshot, a three-person team that will shut down its product and work on Facebook Photos as engineers. Originally posted on Gigaom

8. Apple bought the company that many analysts say helped make the brain in the iPad tablet. The small chip company called Intrinsity of Austin, Texas, made a name for itself by creating a fast chip for mobile devices in cooperation with Samsung, both a partner and competitor to Apple. Reported by New York Times

9. Apple acquired Siri — an iPhone app that doubles as a voice-operated personal assistant. Published on Mashable
10. Palm acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.2 billion, the companies announced on 28th April.

11. Security software giant Symantec has acquired two email and data encryption companies this morning. Symantec purchased PGP Corporation for approximately $300 million in cash and acquired GuardianEdge for approximately $70 million in cash. Read Full story on Techcrunch