Soluto, owned by US company Asurion, is buying Israeli startup Drippler, which has developed a content recommendations and technical support app designed to help smartphone users to get the most out of their devices. Drippler's app has been downloaded by five million users, and it has gained a high 4.5 rating on Google Play. Drippler's seven employees are expected to join Soluto.
The acquisition price is estimated at $3 million, which represents a loss for Drippler's investors, who have put $6.35 million into the company since 2011. Drippler's founders are CEO Matan Talmi, CPO Dotan Galron, and CTO Ronen Yacobi. Talmi said of the deal to sell the company, "When we first got to know the activity of Soluto and Asurion, we discovered how much our vision was similar, and realized that there was strong synergy."
Soluto, which employs about 100 people at its offices on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, began as a developer of support software for personal computers. In 2013, it was bought by Asurion for an estimated $100 million, and since then it has focused its efforts more on mobile telephones than on PCs. Some of Soluto's services overlap with those of Drippler. They include personal recommendations, technical Q&A, human technical support, and even repair of broken screens at users' homes.
Soluto reports providing service to some 300 million users served by Asurion, which employs 17,000 people and provides service to mobile and network companies and to retail chains such as Walmart. Soluto founder and CEO Tomer Dvir says that his company's vision is to assist users of all kinds of devices. Asurion offers a range of apps, among them an assistance app for using smartphones, an advice app on smart homes, and an app that facilitates direct connection with technical experts in various fields. Of the acquisition of Drippler, Dvir said it was a natural tie-up between experts in a similar field.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 19, 2017
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