One of Britain’s youngest Internet
entrepreneurs has hit the jackpot after selling his top-selling mobile
application Summly to search giant Yahoo, Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
Seventeen-year-old Nick d’Aloisio, who
dreamed up the idea for the content-shortening program when he was
studying for his exams, said he was surprised by the deal. As with its
other recent acquisitions, Yahoo didn’t disclose how much it is paying
for Summly, although British newspapers suggested the deal’s value at
several million dollars.
“I would have never imagined being in
this position so suddenly,” he wrote on his website, before thanking his
family, his school — and his venture capitalist backer Li Ka-Shing —
for supporting him.
Summly works by condensing content so
readers can scroll through more information more quickly — useful for
the small screens of smartphones.
The deal announced Monday is Yahoo’s
fifth small acquisition in the past five months. All of them have been
part of CEO Marissa Mayer’s effort to attract more engineers with
expertise in building services for smartphones and tablet computers, an
increasingly important area of technology that she believes the Internet
company had been neglecting.
Although the Yahoo acquisition won’t
close until later this spring, D’Aloisio said the Summly will no longer
be available. Summly’s technology will return in other Yahoo products,
he said.
D’Aloisio will work for Yahoo in its
London office — in part so that he can complete his high school exams.
Two other Summly workers will join Yahoo at its Sunnyvale, California,
headquarters.
D’Aloisio is younger than Yahoo, which was incorporated in March 1995.
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