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June 24, 2007

Google To Acquire GrandCentral

Michael Arrington

100 comments »

Google is in acquisition discussions with telephone management startup GrandCentral, we’ve learned, and we have a high degree of confidence that the deal has actually been closed. We are trying to nail down the acquisition price. Just last week I flagged this company as the most exciting startup we’re currently tracking.

The basic idea around GrandCentral is “one phone number for all your phones, for life.” As we change jobs, homes and cell phones, there are a lot of phone numbers to keep track of, and keeping everyone up to date with your most recent phone numbers is a real cost. If you use GrandCentral you can give out a single phone number. What happens when that person calls that number depends on his/her relationship to you, and what you are doing at the time.

The company, which has raised less than $6 million in capital from Minor Ventures (the exact amount has never been disclosed), beta launched just last September. Earlier this year mainstream press and blogger attention heated up.

The company may have received too much press attention before the product was ready, and we reported on some backlash from beta users abandoning the service in March. Still, the company pushed ahead, launching a mobile product and other features.

GrandCentral was recently pitching a second round of financing to Silicon Valley venture capitalists, but broke off discussions abruptly as the Google talks heated up.

I’m speculating on where Google will use GrandCentral, but the synergies with Gmail and GTalk are fairly obvious and could be the next step in Google’s competition with Skype and other instant messaging platforms.

This is, in my opinion, a great move by Google. Grand Central is an awesome productivity and simplifies the lives of users with multiple phones by giving them a single phone number and letting them handle calls via rules. It’s a natural fit with GTalk and Gmail.

Google won’t comment on this story. I have an email in to GrandCentral to see if they’ll confirm.

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Comments

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  1. Ronald Lewis

    June 24th, 2007 at 8:39 pm

    Good for GC. I’m sure they’ll compliment Google’s expanding portfolio quite well.

  2. Gadgetize

    June 24th, 2007 at 8:46 pm

    Glad for GC, but if Google’s plan is to resurrect GTalk into some significance it’s too bad GC will get dragged along.

  3. Alex

    June 24th, 2007 at 8:49 pm

    God bless America. This is a great country!

    What were the revenues for GC? I bet less than $50k

    There are only two pieces missing for this part of the platform, one is CRM. I bet GOOG will acquire ZOHO for that void.

    The second piece is ______? Hint it is voice related

  4. lawrence

    June 24th, 2007 at 8:56 pm

    that’s quick to get acquired.
    good for grand central… i think they made the best decision to sellout now, rather than grow it themselves.

  5. Josh

    June 24th, 2007 at 9:30 pm

    This acquisition will help Google strengthen its services if it integrates them. GMail, Google Calendar, and Docs and Spreadsheets, combined with Grand Central and Google Gears could be a wicked package.

    To top it all off, they should probably launch the Google Phone too.

  6. james

    June 24th, 2007 at 9:38 pm

    woo! i’m excited… hopefully google improves and expands on this. maybe even put integration into their gphone??

    (unrelated)
    you know, i’m curious to know Michael if you have any thoughts of what a much better buyer Apple would have been to Last.fm. Integration with itunes that WORKS…. limitless data on real-time music trends, one click access to buy a song that you hear on the site, a real community, integration with the ipod. i think it would have been a great and strong fit.

  7. Larry Velez

    June 24th, 2007 at 9:39 pm

    Does anyone know what happened to the company that used to have this domain that was trying to build an RAD-like application creation service?

    The idea was very smart but it required custom software on the server-side and client-side which is why we never ended up it. Which I was a good choice on our part because they just vanished one day.

    I wonder if this is the some of the same people - if so - it sounds like their change of business plan was right on target…

  8. Terry Sadowski

    June 24th, 2007 at 9:42 pm

    sorry for the off topic comment but I like those shots next to each commentor’s name. It is really cool to see the RSS associated with their blogs. I have never seen that. It is really stunning. Nice work techcrunch.

  9. Erik

    June 24th, 2007 at 9:48 pm

    The big part of the mobile market is the voice channel. The carriers are cutting off their noses to spite their own faces by overcharging for data and regulating the data channel so much.

    Voice is where it is at.

  10. Minic Rivera

    June 24th, 2007 at 9:51 pm

    I use GrandCentral. I have tons of numbers from the company :) Each one in the family has a GC number.

  11. Andrew

    June 24th, 2007 at 10:00 pm

    crap service but lots of users always helps

  12. David Ulevitch

    June 24th, 2007 at 10:04 pm

    As a happy user of GrandCentral (415 287 7721 is me) I can say this is a great fit for Google and GC. I’ve met some of their engineers (smart folks) and they created a fantastic service in a very short amount of time. I never experienced the problems other folks had. The service has worked well for me.

    My only feature request has been for them to add SMS service through my GC number. They’ve said that they are working on it and at their pace, I’m sure it’ll be coming down the pipe soon.

  13. Sam Jackson

    June 24th, 2007 at 10:05 pm

    James- you think it might have been perceived as a conflict of interests where business models were concerned, if Apple wasn’t thinking that it would drive sales to their satisfaction and would instead cannibalize revenue? That’s not how you and I see it, obviously… I am not happy with CBS’ management thus far, but hey, high expectations.

  14. Austin Storm

    June 24th, 2007 at 10:19 pm

    Holy moley! This could be *seriously cool*

  15. Cyrano

    June 24th, 2007 at 10:20 pm

    If those goes like the Jot acquisition went, I can pretty much expect support to be horrible and unresponsive and development to come to a standstill.

    Awesome.

  16. Cortland Coleman

    June 24th, 2007 at 10:33 pm

    Congrats to the guys at GC. I know there was negative feedback earlier this year, but I’ve found GC to be reliable and robust. I used it primarily during a recent job search and it performed flawlessly.

  17. Andrew

    June 24th, 2007 at 10:38 pm

    I sure hope they won’t throw in audio ads into the phone calls

  18. Bryan Bartow

    June 24th, 2007 at 10:50 pm

    Congrats to the GC team if true. I’d written feedback to the GC team several months back asking them to integrate their address book with GMail’s. I guess they took the suggestion very seriously =)

  19. Joe Duck

    June 24th, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    Some of these aquistions seem to be Google simply burning up cash. This is a good idea but it’s not really Google territory…at least unless Google is planning to take over pretty much every tech thing….oh, ummm, now I get it.

  20. David

    June 24th, 2007 at 11:42 pm

    What’s interesting is what this means for similar companies, ala Jangl, Jaxtr, and more. We’ve already seen what’s happened with SKype (with Intel and DT), but even GC doesn’t seem to have a service or model that will appeal to anyone other than geeks. It’s been done before (Ring Central) so good luck to the GOOG on this one, if anyone can, they can. But looking at Jangl and Jaxter, Jangl already has deals in place, Jaxter has a little virality. Split the diff, perhaps, but I’d lay bets on Jangl cause of the team and the momentum.

  21. Marshall Kirkpatrick

    June 24th, 2007 at 11:50 pm

    Wow - sell one telephony startup to Yahoo! - then found another one and sell it to Google! Have to wonder what these guys are going to do next.

  22. Hashim

    June 24th, 2007 at 11:50 pm

    I stayed away from using my Grand Central number because i was afraid the service might disappear the next day. It would be a disaster to for me.

    But now that Google has them, I feel more comfortable.

  23. Sarah

    June 25th, 2007 at 12:35 am

    It was a good move for Google–routing communication is going to be the key of Global Inbox 3.0.

    I love Grand Central: visual voicemail is more efficient, it’s great to be able to move from a Skype call to my mobile phone without hanging up, and the *4 record feature has likely saved my life numerous times since I no longer have to scribble something down while driving.

  24. R. Sosa

    June 25th, 2007 at 12:55 am

    Isn’t GC a little like Gates’ Unified Communications Revolution?
    http://www.microsoft.com/mscor.....dcomm.mspx

  25. mieses

    June 25th, 2007 at 1:14 am

    local number portability to and away from the service would be a good feature.

    i wouldn’t use this for an important number without the confidence that i could port the number away. and i’d be happy to port existing numbers to the service if i knew i could port them out.

  26. quux

    June 25th, 2007 at 1:30 am

    Cyrano makes a great point! jot.com was going gangbusters … and then Google aquired them. it’s been 8 months - no announcements. No new users or features. Jot is basically at a standstill in some kind of Google limbo.

    I am pretty excited by GrandCentral, except for two showstoppers - the inability to set amount of time before a call goes to message (about 15 seconds, which is too short), and the call-out issue mentioned above. I hope those are addressed soon, and I have this fear that a Google acquisition could lead to a Jot-like limbo. I hope not - GC would be a *great* addition to my Google Apps.

  27. Moshe Maeir

    June 25th, 2007 at 1:48 am

    This is a great sale for the Grand Central people and another homerun for their
    publicist Andy Abramson!
    Let’s look a little down the road. It is hard to understand what advantage this gives Google. GC concept is great, but in reality anyone can do it with a little programming. Eventually everyone in telephony will have call handling options, the question is who will have the customers? Google has not proved themselves in this field.
    In fact any of our customers at the Flat Planet Phone Company can set up a GC like application. But what is an application without paying users??

  28. PJ at Ferodynamics

    June 25th, 2007 at 4:07 am

    If all you need is a free voicemail number to send you .wav’s by email, try k7.net, which has been around for years. But if this Google thing can route important calls to my cell phone, that might be useful.

  29. Nathan

    June 25th, 2007 at 5:50 am

    I stayed away from using my Grand Central number because i was afraid the service might disappear the next day. It would be a disaster to for me.

    But now that Google has them, I feel even less comfortable.

  30. Scott

    June 25th, 2007 at 6:04 am

    I agree with Nathan… Now that Google has them and you know all history will be kept forever it is not something I would want to use.

  31. randy

    June 25th, 2007 at 6:22 am

    Google has obviously acquired this company because the service works into (or interefered with) their idea of what the Google Phone will be.

  32. Adam

    June 25th, 2007 at 6:45 am

    How do these guys make money?

  33. Rob

    June 25th, 2007 at 6:58 am

    This is a seriously cool product! Anyone know of a UK version?

    Thanks

  34. Dennis Crow

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:02 am

    I’d like to whisper this (so loud the whole room can hear!):

    Why not Google(Apple), Gapple, Gaggle, or whatever. Google should buy Apple and make the iPhone their platform. I often wonder what we could have done with the PSP if Google could have developed it. Here’s a chance.
    Or, maybe Google is waiting for Apple to iron out the bugs in the iPhone before launching their platform.
    Or maybe they will never launch a platform.
    Or maybe they’re waiting until neural implants to organize all the info in my brain!
    Thanks for listening.
    Oh, how about GooeyApple?

  35. Hot Deals

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:03 am

    Nice service, good pickup by the Google

  36. Richard Miller

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:08 am

    I wonder what’s next…..Google to acquire the MOON?

  37. Yezidi

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:21 am

    I have been enjoying GC for a few weeks now and I hope Google does not stand in its way. I am excited about the prospects of an acquisition by such a big company but at the same time I wonder if it will be a good thing in the short and long term for we subscribers.

  38. Audio 2.0

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:31 am

    [Adam

    June 25th, 2007 at 6:45 am

    How do these guys make money?]

    They are offering the service for free now because they are still in beta and want the most users possible so they can work out all the kinks. I’m sure they planned on charging for the service when they went out of beta, but now that Google is going to buy them out, it will probably remain free. My guess is that Google will find a way to monetize it with some type of advertising.

  39. Meoip

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:32 am

    I’m glad I already have a GC number. I’ve not used it a whole lot but I like the idea. I’ve been holding on to it to let the kinks get ironed out before I move all my numbers to it and set one up for the folks.

  40. Tara

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:34 am

    I once told my readers what billionaire Michael Lee-Chin said about expanding on what you know to amass a fortune.

    Google knows a lot!

  41. d4rkf1br

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:40 am

    I personally think this is great. I think GC is a great service, and idea. My one concern has always been the longevity of the service. Your setting yourself up when you make a statement like “one number for life” life can be a very long time. :-)

    I think google will definately help to make the service more legit and strength the validity of the “one number for life”.

  42. Andy Beal

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:46 am

    Michael, you post URL suggests the company sold for $50 million, did you get any confirmation on the price?

  43. dave

    June 25th, 2007 at 8:36 am

    what an awesome piece of the puzzle this would be - perfect for consumer and enterprise use/integration, and certainly the webcall and mobile features were the deal drivers (imho)…

    my acq price guess: 140-180 million…there were other bidders. just don’t ask how i know that.

  44. Bernhard

    June 25th, 2007 at 8:44 am

    Seems the US is a bit out of touch with the rest of the world to call this new. European telephony providers have offered this sort of service since 2000. Its called an 0700 number.
    Also the name isn’t all that original. GrandCentral is the name of a well-established work-flow product for pre-press bureaus and print-houses, and has been in use since before the days of the web.

  45. Scott Yates

    June 25th, 2007 at 9:07 am

    I’ve like GC, too. I also requested a new feature: conference calling. It’s a standard enough VOIP thing, but they haven’t gotten to it yet. Now I wonder when that will come, if ever.

  46. jamie martin

    June 25th, 2007 at 9:15 am

    i love GC, i hope we don’t get ads now :/

  47. bdb

    June 25th, 2007 at 9:26 am

    Great service, we’ll have to see how well it works post-acquisition, and perhaps the purchase price will give insight into the seriousness of thought on the part of the big G.

    Scott, remember that VOIP conference calling company from Scandinavia the was acquired in the last few months? I wouldn’t worry about it taking too long.

  48. asdf

    June 25th, 2007 at 9:41 am

    Word from GC is it’s not true.

  49. Florian SEROUSSI

    June 25th, 2007 at 9:57 am

    Hope Google will open GC to open SIP like Gizmo.

    DDI are useless if you cannot also redirect via SIP or Asterix.

    Just my 02cts.

  50. Charles

    June 25th, 2007 at 10:06 am

    Jangl is quietly putting together another round, which is supposed to include an investment from a Google competitor in search.

  51. Fast Wilma

    June 25th, 2007 at 10:30 am

    Didn’t this company raise close to $30m from Halsey Minor’s 12 Entrepreneuring disaster seed fund and Benchmark and Goldman? I heard Halsey then re-capped it himself with the $6mm? If so wonder how much was new and how much benefit they got from the $30mm R&D - clearly a different biz model - just curious if this was a kick save or a quick hit? Seems to be more to this story . . . Benioff and Ted Waitt were on the board but don’t appear to be involved post the re-cap. http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/index.php?p=2196

  52. Gomzi

    June 25th, 2007 at 10:49 am

    NOT RELATED. BUT CHECK THIS OUT GUYS….

    http://www.wired.com/techbiz/p.....rentPage=1

    Pretty insipiring article on Michael Arrington.

  53. Sambay Reviews

    June 25th, 2007 at 10:50 am

    Web 2.0 is really funny. Onebox.com has been doing what GrandCentral just started, for years!

  54. Leigh Hunt

    June 25th, 2007 at 11:37 am

    I use the service and told many about it. One thing I wanted to see was the integration of multiple numbers under one account. I want to be able to have a number in CA, WA, NY, CO all ring to my same number.

    Also how are they making money at this point? The service is free.

  55. Loic

    June 25th, 2007 at 11:41 am

    The first time I met Vincent Paquet (founder), my first question has been: How do you scale ? Because, I have worked in Call Control applications, and this is usually one concern (both latency and throughput). He didn’t convinced me with his answer (”our CTO is from CalTech”)…

    The only thing that prevent me to use more extensively my GC phone number was the fear that the company closes, and that I have to tell all my contacts to change again my phone number.

    But now, having Google over their shoulder, I am a bit more confident. Now, Google will also know who is calling me !

  56. Jon

    June 25th, 2007 at 1:05 pm

    I look forward to seeing the purchasing price before making a comment, although google probably bought this simply with interest from its warchest.

    Jon

  57. Concrete Stain

    June 25th, 2007 at 1:09 pm

    I think google should stick to purchasing companies that have - 1 main focus -

    incorporating a company that is a ”bundle” service company like GC is harder exponentially with every thing extra they do …

    - Also if it wasnt programmed right - then you were just buying the idea and not the application (which is worthless) … or maybe some patents (which could be worthless)

  58. greg

    June 25th, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    So explain this move to me, Yahoo buys Dialpad, but the whole management team leaves within months (from what I heard “Peanut Butter” Brad Garlinghouse and Craig Walker didn’t get along). They go form another startup that they sell to Google for $50M

    Well, I’m sure these guys are bummed that Yahoo didn’t keep them around.

  59. Farhad

    June 25th, 2007 at 5:03 pm

    Actually, Grand Central that was founded in the web services space back in 99, 2000, raised about $60M, and then ran into trouble. I don’t know if anything remains from the that old company - I’m guessing the cap table was completely cleaned out. Still, I don’t know how accurate it is to indicate that it’s raised less than $6M and is less than a year old.

  60. AP

    June 25th, 2007 at 5:04 pm

    But then the key folks were already friends per this help section image on GrandCentral:

    http://www.grandcentral.com/im.....screen.gif

  61. Doug

    June 25th, 2007 at 5:29 pm

    I used this product in the beta and had to cancel due to poor performance…and people that called me HATED the experience.

  62. Alton

    June 25th, 2007 at 6:49 pm

    What about privacy?
    If Google does buy GrandCentral.com, I’m likely to delete my account.

  63. yodel

    June 25th, 2007 at 7:35 pm

    Concrete Stain - you should just stick to selling concrete stain. You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.

  64. Tech Untangled

    June 25th, 2007 at 8:34 pm

    I see 4 major reasons why Google would do this:
    1) connect to the PSTN
    2) collect user information
    3) Mine voicemails and recorded calls for ever
    4) Call from a web Page.

    Read the whole thing at http://techuntangled.com/what-.....for-google

  65. Greg Brown

    June 25th, 2007 at 10:42 pm

    Google phone, gchat, who knows?

    How’s this for an idea (probably more of a side-product of google mobile stuff):

    Google does Yellow Pages v. 2.0

    You upload your phone contacts through GrandCentral (or GoogCentral), now Google has access to all of these numbers and begin (in some manner) to create the first global mobile number directory.

    How they integrate it, I don’t know. There’s growing debate on listing mobile phone numbers in directories. The “phone book” (AT&T and YellowPages.com hooking up on some non-web action) is crap. Google gets us all, in some innocent way, to put our contacts esp. mobile contacts) and thus starts the makings of the super-G-phone number directory (where eventually you’ll be able to call anyone at anytime from any website or the first ever mobile/phone directory and talk to them through google talk or chat with them with google chat or google voip… blah blah)

  66. Samm Adams

    June 26th, 2007 at 1:51 am

    No new users or features. Jot is basically at a standstill in some kind of Google limbo.

  67. billy

    June 26th, 2007 at 11:59 am

    I don’t get it. Why have to get a whole new number to give out to other people?

    I have YouMail and i get to keep my *same* cell number and i can check voicemails online and other cool stuff.
    The best part is having a message for my girlfriend and another for my boss.

    I looked into GC but when i realized they give you another number and all that stuff, i decided to get YouMail instead.

  68. Ned Plimpton

    June 26th, 2007 at 8:10 pm

    First off, great news!
    Now let’s see how they get integrated into the search engine giant.

    Billy,
    I guess you just don’t get the concept, but that’s okay.

    YouMail = new telco features but still the old way of using phones. Web interface still needs a lot of work. With YouMail you’re still tied to multiple numbers, and everytime you replace a phone, i.e. move elsewhere or change jobs, you end up telling all your contacts new numbers.

    GrandCentral = innovative telco features, new way to use your phones. Slick web interface, contact management features, and calling rules. With GrandCentral you treat all your physical/device bound phone numbers as “dumb connections”. GrandCentral ties it all together like a “Slingbox”; regardless of the devices it still communticates to them. So, now whenever you move or change jobs your number will still be your GrandCentral number and not some ever changing device bound phone number! You tell your contacts your number only one-time, which basically is the last time you will ever have to do that.

    So my advice to all of you is, you better get a number now. Get it NOW!

  69. anonymous

    June 27th, 2007 at 6:18 am

    I have a few Googler buddies. They are very low level, but they don’t buy this story.

    It just doesn’t make sense. GrandCentral has some nice features and all but it’s not a category dominator, more a toy 20% app googlers might build in their spare time.

  70. conti

    June 27th, 2007 at 8:15 am

    What does Grand Central have to do with Google’s business model?

  71. mieses

    June 27th, 2007 at 11:26 pm

    > What does Grand Central have to do with Google’s business model?

    i’m so with you! also, what does GTalk have to do with Google’s business model? not to mention Apps, Labs, or 99% of the 20% time. they should stick to search before they lose their edge, those silly googlers.

  72. Dan

    June 28th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

    So can anyone confirm if this deal actually happened?

  73. anonymous

    June 28th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

    Hi Ned. I think you’re missing the point. Grand Central has some very cool features, and it does let you become independent of a particular carrier. But most people don’t want or need most of the features, and it’s a giant pain giving out a new number. If you’re like most people and your cell phone is where 99% of the calls that matter go, YouMail is much easier to use - a few keystrokes and all your voicemail is accessible online. Sure - YouMail needs some more features like syncing with outlook. But fundamentally I think there are different audiences for YouMail vs. Grand Central - and I’m willing to bet that YouMail is much more mass market, and they seem to be taking the company much more in the direction of social networking rather than cool telephone tricks. But a big $$ acquisition for Grand Central would be good for all the players in the space.

  74. Ned Plimpton

    June 30th, 2007 at 1:11 pm

    73. anonymous

    Voicemail IS a feature. When your company is based on only one feature, namely voicemail, frankly you are in trouble. Voicemail is only one of many features that Grand Central offers.

    What kind of social networking features are you talking about? Youmail’s greetings? I really don’t think that is much social networking there, it’s probably better that I record my own, which Grand Central already offers. I think Grand Central’s social networking aimed features are tons better than YouMail, namely call me buttons that you can place on web pages or even the voicemail posting feature.

    As for as Grand Central’s rumored acquisition, I really do not think it will make a dent for the other players in this space because there really aren’t any players in their space. All the other players are either Voicemail focused companies, i.e. YouMail, GotVoice, or cheap calling companies, i.e. Jajah, Rebtel, etc. I do think this will make companies realize they have to do more than what they are doing now.

  75. Baz L

    July 2nd, 2007 at 4:35 am

    Just received an email from GrandCentral. They just killed the ability to upload ringtones for the RingShare. :(. They got some Gallery or something where you can pick.

    Also they inform the other party when a recording is started. Oh well, that’s what happens when Google buys in. A lot of legal issues have to be taken care of.
    –
    Baz L
    Day In The Life of Baz

  76. Any Law

    July 9th, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    I just signed up for this service through a friends invite. I think it sounds great though I am a little weary of the uptime and beta status. This really is one number for life. The feature set is impressive and I would bet that anyone hearing what you can do would be interested. Hopefully G will open this up to everyone soon and get some more zip codes!

  77. AJ Martin

    July 11th, 2007 at 7:25 am

    To me this acquisition is about click to call advertising

    GOOG assigns and controls your “pseudo phone number” they give the pseudo number to the advertiser as a lead for click to call - without revealing your actual phone number

    Tthis way GOOG can control the entire communication between buyer and seller - combine this with a gmail email address then the buyer is completely isolated from the seller during the shopping process, no actual email or phone number is given only gmail and grand central phone number - which can be filtered to voicemail or turned off at the customer’s whim.

    This creates an environment where shoppers are less afraid to give out a phone number to vendors ALSO my guess is that you cannot add a grand central number to the Do Not Call lists so this would protect the vendors from calling shoppers that are on a federal and/or state DNC list.

    Very smart and this will be a strong componet of GOOG’s click to call for local advertising - too bad GC rolled so early

  78. Ned Plimpton

    July 12th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

    AJ,

    You are assuming the worst. Grand Central encourages you to register your Grand Central number on the Do-Not-Call list. Stop being such a conspiracy theorist.

    Google does not believe in doing evil, it’s one of their core values. I think it’s one of Grand Central’s core values too.

    Ned (I just love the product too much)

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