Late last year we reported rumours about a possible acquisition of Toronto-based photo-sharing start-up Bubbleshare by News Corp Interactive.
It turns out that the rumours were half true as there was an announcement today that Bubbleshare had indeed been purchased, but by another Toronto company – Kaboose.
If you want some background on the companies you might be interested in knowing that we asked Kaboose President Jonathan Graff Five Questions back in 2005 and later that year we asked Bubbleshare founder Albert Lai five different questions (nobody can say we’re not on top of things around here).
I heard about today’s announcement via Mark Evans (thanks to Adam for the tip) but this is now all over techmeme. Mathew Ingram has more on the deal including details on what happened to the rumoured deal:
According to one source with some knowledge of the deal with News Corp., the deal fell off the table not because of the publicity but because Ross Levinsohn quit, and it was his idea. Without him, it couldn’t get any traction within News Corp. and so Bubbleshare went looking elsewhere.
Congratulations to Albert and the entire Bubbleshare crew for what I’m sure will be a great new home for the company – and to Kaboose for picking up a great app and some very smart people.