Having a whale of a time
Facebook has acquired group messaging service Beluga and is keeping its team to boot.
A post from Beluga which has Android and iOS apps designed to share updates and photos as well as plan a night out, said the service will remain open and continue as normal, with more news due in the next few weeks.
This marks an interesting move for Facebook, which is known for either buying up technology or poaching interesting team players from elsewhere.
Beluga said: "We're excited to continue to build our vision for mobile group messaging as part of the Facebook team. Beluga and Facebook are committed to create new and better ways to communicate and share group experiences."
According to Tech Crunch, the start-up was busy raising cash from some angel investors and offers were thought to be getting competitively tasty.
It reckons Facebook must have made a pretty good offer to the team of ex-Googlers for them to abandon their fund raising efforts, but no figures or details of the deal have been leaked.
One of Beluga's founders, Ben Davenport told Tech Crunch: "In the process of talking to Facebook, we found our vision aligned very well with theirs."
Facebook reportedly said: "We're psyched to confirm that we've just acquired the talent and assets of Beluga, whose simple and elegant mobile apps blew us away as a solution to help groups of friends stay in touch on the move."
