Google made a small acquisition today of an Israeli startup called LabPixies, which is probably best known for its Flood-It! game on the iPhone (it’s the new Tetris). But LabPixies also creates tons of games in the form of iGoogle gadgets, Facebook apps, Hi5 games, MySpace games, and Android apps. Google did not disclose the price of teh acquisition, but the number going around Israeli venture capital circles is $15 million to $25 million. (TheMarker, in Hebrew, also reports $25 million as the price). Not bad for a startup that only ever raised $1 million in angel funding back in 2008.
Google bought LabPixies for the talent to add to its Israeli R&D center, and to create better apps across both Web and mobile platforms. It is also the first Israeli-headquartered startup ever bought by Google. → Read More
Tel Aviv, Israel based LabPixies, which was founded in March 2006, was one of the early players in the exploding widget space. They’ve stayed small and focused on building really useful or really entertaining widgets, and have mostly kept a low profile. And while you may not have heard of the company, you’ll probably have heard of at least one of the widgets they’ve built, such as the official New York Times crossword widget. The company competes with a small army of highly funded widget startups: Slide, Rockyou, Goowy, Clearspring, Gigya and Widgetbox, among others. 41 million people a month view their widgets, the company says, generating 750 million total widget views. At first they built widgets solely for the iGoogle platform, but have expanded to include Netvibes, Live.com and other platforms. I’ve embedded a few of my favorites below – The New York Times crossword puzzle, Space Invaders, Defender and a Babylon language translation tool. The company also offers interactive advertising widgets that are a lot more interesting than normal ads. The company has created all of this with very few resources. They’ve self financed to now with advertising revenue, and just closed a small $1 million round of financing from angel investors in Israel. They have ten employees. Gadget by LabPixies.com Gadget by LabPixies.com Gadget by LabPixies.com Gadget by LabPixies.com CrunchBase Information LabPixies Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
