UK-born (but Australian-raised) Nick D’Aloisio is sitting on a big pile of money this morning, having sold mobile news reader app Summly to Yahoo! for up to $30 million, although Yahoo!’s plans for the app include shutting the entire service down.
The acquisition isn’t so much about the app as it stands, but more the technology and minds behind it, with D’Aloisio and the Summly team due to join Yahoo! in due course. In a note on the Summly web site, D’Aloisio notes that
We will be removing Summly from the App Store today but expect our summarization technology will soon return to multiple Yahoo! products – see this as a ‘power nap’ so to speak.
D’Aloisio started developing Summly as a 15 year old. He funded development of Summly with outside investment, so it’s not clear how much of the reported $30 million price will go directly into his pocket.
[News.com.au]