O Axios reported today that Apple has acquired the Pullstring, an startup from San Francisco specializes in voice applications.
The company was founded in 2011 by a group of former Pixar executives, and was originally used to voice interactive toys (such as Hello Barbie). She later broadened her approach after product launches such as Amazon Echo and Google Assistant with their technology that could be used to create and publish voice applications for such products.
From 1 to c, it received a $ 44 million investment and, according to PitchBook, was valued at $ 160 million. Nevertheless, the Axios said the deal was around $ 30 million, with another $ 10 million in possible earn-outs for executives including CEO Oren Jacob, who has previously served as Pixar's CTO.
Why buy such a company? Simple: Crab. We can say that Apple itself created the digital assistant market by launching Siri on the iPhone 4s. But from then on, both Amazon and Google did a great job with their respective assistants (Alexa and Google Assistant), left to Ma behind.
Facilitating the creation of apps that use voice commands and, perhaps, making Siri a more open and friendly platform, will greatly help the company to fight on equal terms in this disputed market.
This week we also reported that Apple has acquired DataTiger, a startup English digital marketing.
via MacRumors
