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SCIENCE INC. ACQUIRES ARMENIAN MOBILE APP-MAKER INLIGHT
Tech Crunch
July 11 2014
by Anthony Ha
Looks like Science Inc. is getting more serious about mobile
development -- the startup studio is announcing that it has acquired
an eight-person company based in Yerevan, Armenia called Inlight.
That company developed the iOS app of the same name, a social
newsreading service targeting women. Science CEO Mike Jones and Chief
Business Officer Peter Pham (pictured above at TechCrunch Disrupt)
both told me that while the firm will continue to support the app,
the real purpose of the acquisition was hiring a mobile development
team to support Science companies.
That gets at one of the reasons that the firm calls itself a studio,
rather than another incubator or accelerator. It doesn't just fund
and mentor companies, but also employs a team that can build products
and provide other services to its companies (it invests in some of
those companies and owns others outright). At this point, Pham said
Science has built "a code base to launch e-commerce companies,"
so that, for example, any Science company in that area can launch
"with all the analytics and optimization pieces built in."
Science companies include Dollar Shave Club, DogVacay, and, through
an acquisition, Delicious.
And even though the firm is headquartered in Santa Monica, it has
a development team in India, too. What's been lacking, Jones said,
is a team that's specifically focused on mobile.
"Part of my belief on mobile is that we need to take a lot of bets
very quickly," he said. "And the belief was that in order to do that
we really needed a best of breed, fast development team."
Pham added that having the team in place could help Science "experiment
more with just pure social products," an area that hasn't been a big
focus yet (despite Jones' experience as a former CEO of Myspace). He
said it would also be useful for Science companies that are "maybe
not a core mobile company" -- they need to build a mobile app but it
doesn't necessarily make sense to employ a mobile developer full time.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/11/science-inc-acquires-armenian-mobile-app-maker-inlight/
Tech Crunch
July 11 2014
by Anthony Ha
Looks like Science Inc. is getting more serious about mobile
development -- the startup studio is announcing that it has acquired
an eight-person company based in Yerevan, Armenia called Inlight.
That company developed the iOS app of the same name, a social
newsreading service targeting women. Science CEO Mike Jones and Chief
Business Officer Peter Pham (pictured above at TechCrunch Disrupt)
both told me that while the firm will continue to support the app,
the real purpose of the acquisition was hiring a mobile development
team to support Science companies.
That gets at one of the reasons that the firm calls itself a studio,
rather than another incubator or accelerator. It doesn't just fund
and mentor companies, but also employs a team that can build products
and provide other services to its companies (it invests in some of
those companies and owns others outright). At this point, Pham said
Science has built "a code base to launch e-commerce companies,"
so that, for example, any Science company in that area can launch
"with all the analytics and optimization pieces built in."
Science companies include Dollar Shave Club, DogVacay, and, through
an acquisition, Delicious.
And even though the firm is headquartered in Santa Monica, it has
a development team in India, too. What's been lacking, Jones said,
is a team that's specifically focused on mobile.
"Part of my belief on mobile is that we need to take a lot of bets
very quickly," he said. "And the belief was that in order to do that
we really needed a best of breed, fast development team."
Pham added that having the team in place could help Science "experiment
more with just pure social products," an area that hasn't been a big
focus yet (despite Jones' experience as a former CEO of Myspace). He
said it would also be useful for Science companies that are "maybe
not a core mobile company" -- they need to build a mobile app but it
doesn't necessarily make sense to employ a mobile developer full time.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/11/science-inc-acquires-armenian-mobile-app-maker-inlight/