Yahoo buys up Incredible Labs, the company behind Donna

Mobile personal assistant app Donna will be shut down as the team comes to work at Yahoo

(Updated to reflect comment from Yahoo)

Yahoo was late to the party when it came to mobile, and has been spending the last couple of years trying hard to catch up. That has meant the acquisition of a lot of new startups, over 30 in that period of time.

For its latest purchase, Yahoo has entered into an agreement to acquire Incredible Labs, the company behind mobile personal assistant app Donna, it was revealed on Thursday.

No financial terms of the deal were disclosed, but it was revealed to be an acqui-hire, as the Donna app will be shut down, and removed from the app store, while the team will be coming to work at Yahoo.

"We’re looking forward to the possibilities that will come from bringing the Donna vision—letting technology take care of you—to Yahoo," the company wrote. "Upon closing, our team will be joining Yahoo and working with some incredibly talented people, or in the case of some of us, returning to a company we know and love."

One of  those that will be returning to Yahoo is Kevin Cheng, co-Founder and CEO of Incredible Labs. He was a Senior Interaction Designer at Yahoo, where he worked on Maps and Local, from 2005 unti 2008.

"Five team members will join the Communications team in Sunnyvale at deal close, where they will work on Yahoo Mail," a Yahoo spokesperson told VatorNew.

"When we met with the team from Incredible Labs, it was an immediate fit. As we look to the future, our visions are aligned in that we think technology should be smart enough to think for us."

Donna was an app that was designed to help its users stay on top of their daily schedules by reminding users of their upcoming appointments. It was also able to provide information for its users, including estimated travel time, directions, weather and dial-in information for phone call meetings.

Founded in 2011, Incredible Labs raised $2.5 million in seed funding from a group of investors that included Khosla Ventures, Betaworks, Maynard Webb, CrunchFund, Ashton Kutcher, and some other angels. 

This is Yahoo's fifth acquisition so far this year.

The company also bought Aviate, a replacement Android home screen launcher, mobile marketing startup Sparq and virtual gaming company Cloud Party. Just yesterday it was revealed that Yahoo bought enterprise app studio Tomfoolery. 

(Image source: https://blog.don.na)