Google buys DocVerse for rumored $25M

The acquisition could help lure Microsoft Office users over to Google Docs.

Google has acquired DocVerse, a tool that allows users to collaborate on Microsoft Office documents in the cloud, for a rumored $25 milion.

If that headline looks familiar, it’s because the reports of the likely acquisition first surfaced in late December on TechCrunch. At the time, the tech news site said the deal was worth $25 million. Early Thursday morning, the Wall Street Journal’s Jessica Vascellaro cited unnamed sources who gave the same price point. The terms of the deal weren't officially disclosed.

DocVerse is a pretty offensive acquisition for Google—the most obvious motivation is to lure Microsoft users into Google Docs. On their blog post announcing the acquisition, the startup’s founders, Shan Sinha and Alex DeNeui said “Our first step will be to combine DocVerse with Google Apps to create a bridge between Microsoft Office and Google Apps.” The war for Word is heating up.

The service allows real-time sharing and simultaneous group-editing of Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel and Word documents. Sinha and DeNeui are Microsoft veterans who say they founded the company because they gave up on “the constant back-and-forth email attachments required to share and edit” Office documents.

DocVerse will suspend billing on its paid accounts, and is not taking any new sign-ups, free or paid, for the time being.

The company, founded in 2007, took in $1.3 million in angel investment from Baseline Ventures, Harrison Metal Capital and Naval Ravikant.