A couple of weeks ago we reported several rumors of acquisition of Israel-based FoxyTunes a Firefox plugin that allows users to control their favorite media players from the browser. According to several sources the acquisition has been completed for an undisclosed amount of money.
This happens as Yahoo decided to shut down its premium music service and reroute it to Rhapsody. Prior to Microsoft’s acquisition offer, Yahoo was intending to open an R&D center in Israel: FoxyTunes would probably become the intial operation. It is unclear however for now what would happen in the case of an acquisition by Microsoft.
FoxyTunes was created by 2 brothers, Alex and Vitaly Sirota and raised seed money with Yossi Vardi a few years ago.
update: Alex Sirota just confirmed me the acquisition and do not wish to comment on the terms of the deal, of course… Congratulations anyway
Wow..still Yahoo is acquiring..bit strange..
Yahoo might not sell itself to Microsoft. May be they want MS to buy Yahoo for more cash ??? Who knows ???
@1
This is nothing strange. If MS has offered to buy Yahoo, it does not mean Yahoo is a failed company. Yahoo will run its operations like it normally does.
good to see that Yahoo! is still going on about its business in the midst of the storm..innovation and openness. Hope microsoft will maintain that side of Yahoo! and keep some of its R and D centers.
Certainly good for Yahoo!
The general assumption is that Yahoo! is sold… gone.. but wait a minute, nothing is a done deal until it’s signed on the dotted line..
Yahoo! could possibly not take any deals and push on by themselves….
Great news for the israeli web industry, great news for the Sirota brothers
Yahoo runs forward (:
i thought it was an explorer plug-in…. sh!t!!!
I’m sooooo happy for Foxytunes
Yahoo! made a great choice here!
Congrats to the Sirota Bros
Israeli innovation is alive and kicking……..
but…its just a dinky plugin…
@Josh - No it’s not.
http://www.foxytunes.com/planet
It is quite ironic andinteresting that they bought a company whose product is for Mozilla Firefox….a Microsoft competitor. I don’t know it that’s supposed to send a message to MS or what.
So many acquisitions and then mergers and then more acquisitions.. I sometimes wonder how these companies actually manage to retain any company culture or identity which is wholistic!
Facebook is not the be-all-and-end-all platform that is fostering a new kind of economy, apparently Firefox could be that kind of platform as well, startups need just to figure out how to achieve virality for the plugins.
Quite interesting… A company about to acquired is doing acquisition
@Anif - Clever thought, wish I’d come up with that.
Well done to Foxytunes, clearly a popular tool, but what I am still cuious to figure out is… what is exactly is Yahoo’s grand strategy for turning around the company?
Israeli business & finance site, themarker.com, just reported that purchase price was in the $30M - $40M range –> which means ~ 10X return on investment.
Here’s a link to the report (in Hebrew) - http://it.themarker.com/tmit/article/2710
hats off Yahoo
I still believe Yahoo should be Yahoo, best deal would be a partnership with Google rather than been bought by the monster. We all know the Evil, but the monster, no one knows about it. That’S the difference
This has probably been in the works for quite a while, so I doubt the acquisition talks would have any effect on it.
Why would they buy this service? Y! got out of music…
$30-40M for that? Craaaazy!
Yahoo paid $40M for a Firefox plugin. Small wonder Yahoo is in trouble now. The people on top probably have little idea what they’re doing. You bet Yahoo employees are pissed off now. Yahoo is buying another hopeless startup, at the same time laying off 2000 people.
Though that’s nothing compared to MS shareholders anger. They should sue Steve Ballmer for making such a dumb offer, without asking their approval.
I liked this story especially because its a great example of bootstrapping. Alex Sirota thought of the product, raised money for it and sold it to Yahoo.
More on Foxytunes and detailed coverage of the Israeli startup scene check out VC Cafe at http://www.vccafe.com
I always feel abit cheated when the sum paid is “undisclosed “
24 - Maybe I have the wrong definition of ‘bootstrapping,’ but isn’t that when you *don’t* raise venture or angel money?
Something’s fishy about this deal. It makes no sense! Absolutely no sense!
Is there something shady going on!?!?
i look forward to yahoo shittifying this plugin!
Is it safe to say that “details of the deal were not disclosed” is code-talk for “no lube was availiable?”
@ 20. newssweb
“best deal would be a partnership with Google rather than been bought by the monster. We all know the Evil, but the monster, no one knows about it. That’S the difference”
I’m going to quote from George Orwell’s Animal Farm - twice on techcrunch today already:
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
Who’s the monster on the web?
Oh how Squealer has already faded your memory, remember the PageRank No-Follow fiasco, there’s only one company trying to control the internet and it’s neither Microsoft or the fabled Yahoo! (Lord have mercy)
Being the creators of a Firefox plugin, it must suck real hard to be indirectly bought by Microsoft
(assuming Microsoft will buy Yahoo)
Why should Yahoo! stop on its plans? Because somebody wants to buy the company it does not mean that they need to stop on their tracks an just wait. Way to go Yahoo! and congrats to the FoxyTunes team.
Please foxytunes add the ability for me to play my web music playlist! Instead having to use Seeqod or Songza, I would just use Foxytunes in my FF toolbar to stream my web playlist!