Ending days of speculation, Twitter has today confirmed that it has acquired India’s ZipDial for an undisclosed amount. Certain media estimates peg the deal at somewhere around $30-$40 Million.
Announcing the acquisition in a Blog Post, Twitter said,
We’re very pleased to announce we’ve reached an agreement to acquire ZipDial (@zipdial), a product partner based in Bangalore, India, to make Twitter even more accessible to people around the world.
ZipDial had taken three significant rounds from Mumbai Angels, 500 Startups, Times Internet, and Jungle Ventures, though he amount remains undisclosed.
However, this acquisition was on cards, largely because this isn’t the first time the two companies have collaborated.
Over the past two years Twitter has collaborated with ZipDial on a variety of campaigns, including the Indian elections, Bollywood film promotions and @MTVIndia’s #RockTheVote “Dial the Hashtag” campaign.
ZipDial has built a mobile platform that lets people follow and engage with content across all interfaces. The user experience combines SMS, voice, mobile web, and access to mobile apps to bridge users from offline to online.
Today, people across India use ZipDial’s platform to access content, including cricket scores, audio programming, Tweets from their favorite Bollywood stars – and much more – on their mobile phones. Leading figures, including actors, politicians and athletes, also use the platform to instantly reach millions of citizens on Twitter through text and voice messages.
This isn’t the first time that an Indian start-up has been acquired by a western, new-age tech brand. Earlier, Facebook had acquired little Eye Labs for an undisclosed amount. Similarly, Yahoo had acquired BookPad $15 Million last year.
