A popular news feed app, created by a UK teenager, has been bought by Yahoo in a deal that could be worth tens of millions of pounds to its creator.
The app in question, Summly, which is a tool which summarises news stories to just a few lines, will close though. The intellectual properties of the app will be used by the US firm in its own products.
The designer of the software, Nick D’Aloisio, has also been given a job at the company. Still in education at the moment, D’Aloisio will work from Yahoo’s London offices. Other members of the Summly team have also been offered jobs in the firm.
It is a staggering rise for the app and the man behind it. D’Aloisio created it when he was just 15, and quickly secured £1 million of investment. The speed with which things have moved is not lost on the creator.
He said on the Summly blog:
“When I founded Summly at 15, I would have never imagined being in this position so suddenly.”
In a statement which read very much like an Oscars acceptance speech, the teenager went on to thank everyone involved.
Adam Cahan, the Yahoo senior vice president of mobile, welcomed the Summly team to the company, immediately hinting towards how the deal would work:
“For publishers, the Summly technology provides a new approach to drive interest in stories and reach a generation of mobile users that want information on the go,”
Though the amount of the deal has not been disclosed, estimations being banded about suggest it could be as much as £40 million.
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