Bump, the Contact Sharing App, Acquired by Google
Bump Technologies, the company behind the popular mobile contact sharing app Bump has been acquired by Google for an undisclosed amount. The app which lets you physically tap phones together to share contact information and more will continue to function and will remain available for download. Right now, the Bump app is sitting pretty nicely at number 33 of the top social networking app downloads within the Apple App Store. I’m curious to see how Google will integrate Bump’s technology within Android.
According to Bump co-founder and CEO, David Lieb, “We strive to create experiences that feel like magic, enabled behind the scene with innovations in math, data processing, and algorithms. So we couldn’t be more thrilled to join Google, a company that shares our belief that the application of computing to difficult problems can fundamentally change the way that we interact with one another and the world.”
Whether that means Google has plans for Bump’s underlying technology in some other way than just contact sharing remains to be seen, but I have a strong feeling it does. I also feel pretty strongly that in the future, we won’t be tapping smartphones to transfer information with Bump, especially now that Apple has implemented AirDrop on iOS 7, which finds people already in your contacts list who are near by and allows you to easily and quickly send them files without tapping phones.
Bump launched 2008 in and raised $20 million.
Update: A source close to the deal has told AllThingsD that the deal was worth at least $30 million, and perhaps as much as $60 million.