Yahoo has acquired Summly, a startup that has developed technology to automatically summarize news articles for mobile sites, the company announced this morning.
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“Our vision is to simplify how we get information and we are thrilled to continue this mission with Yahoo!’s global scale and expertise,” Summly founder Nick D’Aloisio wrote in a blog post. “After spending some time on campus, I discovered that Yahoo! has an inspirational goal to make people’s daily routines entertaining and meaningful, and mobile will be a central part of that vision. For us, it’s the perfect fit.”
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D’Aloisio started programming at just 12 years old, and he founded Summly last fall at 15. It’s not the only news summarization app out there, but Summly packs in a surprising amount of elegant design on top of its news blurb tech. It’s a shame the app is being killed off, but hopefully D’Aloisio and his team can bring some design smarts to Yahoo’s other mobile products.
London-based Summly has raised more than $1.5 million from several investors, including Horizons Ventures, Ashton Kutcher, Betaworks, Brian Chesky, Hosain Rahman, and others.
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