German mobile startup Cellity is getting acquired by Nokia. The sale price was not disclosed, but it is not likely to be more than $10 million to $20 million. The deal was all cash. About a year ago, Vodafone bought Cellity’s competitor Zyb for 31.5 million Euros.
Nokia didn’t actually buy the whole company, only “certain assets” and the team, which is usually code for a fire sale. The company began talking to Nokia six months ago, and in the end there was actually a little bit of a bidding war with Netherlands mobile carrier KPN and an international web portal. Cellity had a Series A round of funding in 2007, led by Mangrove Capital Partners.
Cellity’s service is a social addressbook for mobile phones which which syncs your contact list on your phone with your contacts on the Web, including Outlook, Twitter, AOL, Hotmail, Yahoomail, Gmail, Plaxo and LinkedIn. Nokia won’t be continuing Cellity’s Addressbook 2.0 service, but it stands to reason the team will build similar functionality from scratch for future Nokia phones. Or perhaps they will work on new projects. The team will become part of Nokia’s Services division in Berlin, which also houses other startup acquisitions Plazes and bit-side.
Congratulations Sarik and the Cellity team! You’ve done a fantastic job over the years inventing your company and its products over and over again.
Et teh Eric!
“but it stands to reason teh team will build similar”
This is smart grab for Nokia as they move more into social services, apps etc. — the fit is a powerful one.
Look at all of these big companies buying all of these new start-ups.
yah great acquisition, cuz you know, vodafone is just making soooo much money with zyb….uhm…
Sarik, this is great news!
Congratulations for the deal with Nokia.
@Monty
Thanks a lot, party time at cellity HQ!
Congratulations Sarik!
@Ole
Thanks, I also wish you all the best for http://www.stepmap.de
I love your courage to bring up this great idea, can´t wait to see it rocking!
My guess is they will be integrating the features directly into Ovi.
One small bite for #Nokia; one great disaster for all @cellity users.
Oh – and the cellity Community (a.k.a. user forum) http://community.cellity.com/ has already gone offline.
User input is clearly no longer desirable (are users *ever* desirable?).
But cellity was great whilst it lasted…
+ R.I.P. cellity 30 September 2009 +
Thanks for your comment Eridanus. cellity always appreciates user input and we are happy to receive any opinion or comment on our blog (blog.cellity.com) or on twitter (@cellity).
Congratulations to Sarik and the entire team!
Thanks, Frederik, very much appreciated!
I like very much the writings and pictures and explanations in your adress so I look forward to see your next writings.
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I am using Messmo application as cellity dont work for me. Messmo is an easy to use program that allows you to send and receive SMS messages from your mobile phone. It is very easy to access it from your cellphone. Just point your web browser to link “m.messmo.com” and enjoy your free communication.