Posted on April 2, 2008 at 4:44 PM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Venture Capital
Tagged: Charles River Ventures , firefox , foxytunes , microsoft , mobile device , music players , Series B , Sigma Partners , software , speech recognition , vlingo , voice-enabled , yahoo

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Microsoft Corp.'s hostile $44.6 billion takeover play for Yahoo! Inc. hasn't dampened the Internet giant's appetite for innovative startups. In February, just days after Microsoft announced its intentions, Yahoo! closed a deal to buy Israel-based FoxyTunes, a Firefox plugin that allows users to control music players from their browser, for an undisclosed amount. Then on Wednesday, speech recognition technology firm Vlingo announced that Yahoo! had led a $20 million Series B funding round, which included Charles River Ventures and Sigma Partners. At the same time, Yahoo! introduced a new voice-enabled version of its oneSearch product built on Vlingo's speech recognition technology. The new product allows users to speak their query into mobile devices rather than type it into a search window.

Is Yahoo! raising its dealmaking profile in response to Microsoft's advance? Probably not. These are tiny deals in the Yahoo! universe. But it does show that Yahoo! appears focused on building its business despite one big distraction. And that's a good thing. - Suzanne Stevens


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