AVG acquires Israeli photo-management startup MyRoll, plans to integrate the technologies

Israeli photo-management startup MyRoll has been acquired by AVG Technologies, the Czech company behind the popular security software of the same name. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Initially founded out of Tel Aviv in 2012 as Flayvr, MyRoll raised $2 million in funding last year and pivoted to become an intelligent gallery app that surfaces all of your best photos and videos. The app automatically sorts your camera roll into “shareable moments.”

Back in February, the startup launched a new stand-alone app called Gallery Doctor, which identifies your bad or duplicate photos to help you free up storage on your device. Available only for Android at first, it finally landed on iOS this summer.

Now MyRoll will be joining AVG’s new Mobile Center of Excellence, which opened in June. This means the MyRoll folks won’t have too far to travel, as AVG’s new facility also happens to be based in Tel Aviv.

Both the MyRoll and Gallery Doctor apps will continue as they are for the time being, though the company says it will be integrating its technology into AVG products “in the near future.” Reading between the lines here, this likely means that the stand-alone apps will be shuttered.

VentureBeat actually predicted back in February that MyRoll was ripe for acquisition, and I said at the time:

“If I was a betting man, I’d perhaps put a few bucks on one of the tech titans coming along and buying MyRoll outright … there’s definitely something in the air in Israel, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if a big name came callin’ at MyRoll’s door.”

Indeed, there most certainly is something in the air in Israel. Earlier this week, Microsoft confirmed it had acquired cyber security firm Secure Islands, marking Microsoft’s fifth Israeli acquisition of the year. Looking further back, other notable Israeli acquisitions include Waze by Google, Onavo by Facebook, CloudOn by Dropbox, and SlickLogin by Google.

This may seem like an odd acquisition by AVG, a brand synonymous with desktop and mobile security apps. But the company already offers a range of related services, including AVG Cleaner for Android and Mac, which helps clean up the memory on your devices to free up space. So MyRoll’s smart algorithm-based technology, which enables Gallery Doctor, will actually fit in rather well at AVG.