By: Aseem Gaurav on August 22, 2011
Internet calling company Skype has acquired GroupMe, a startup that offers a free group text messaging and conference call service on mobile phones.
Skype did not revealed information related to purchase price and terms of the deal.
Formed in 2010, GroupMe allows you to create on the fly private phone groups with others, and then send text messages and make conference calls with circles of friends or colleagues. It offers its application on Apple's iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android Marketplace.
Earlier this month, GroupMe introduced a new version of its application that supports direct messaging to members of the group or broadcast over Twitter and Facebook. GroupMe 3.0 enables users to share photos, ask questions from a website, send messages, without downloading the application.
The acquisition would enable Skype to compete against Facebook’s Messenger service and Google+’s Huddle.
"The GroupMe’s group messaging experience would work perfectly with the voice, video and text products in the Skype family," said Skype CEO Tony Bates in a statement.
GroupMe said its service currently sends nearly 100 million messages a month.
“Both the companies are focused to help people stay in touch with the people they really know. This is a big win-win deal for both. We will remain in New York, team intact, working on our standalone application. But we now have access to Skype’s 175 million monthly connected users,” the GroupMe team wrote in its official blog about the deal.
