Google Acquires Artificial Intelligence Startup DeepMind For More Than $500M

• TechCrunch

Posted  by Catherine Shu (@catherineshu)

• 

Google will buy London-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind. The Information reports that the acquisition price was more than $500 million, and that Facebook was also in talks to buy the startup late last year. We’ve emailed Google and DeepMind for comment. The acquisition was originally confirmed by Google to Re/code.
Google’s hiring of DeepMind will help it compete against other major tech companies as they all try to gain business advantages by focusing on deep learning. For example, Facebook recently hired NYU professor Yann LeCunn to lead its new artificial intelligence lab, IBM’s Watson supercomputer is now working on deep learning, and Yahoo recently acquired photo analysis startup LookFlow to lead its new deep learning group.
DeepMind was founded by neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, a former child prodigy in chess, Skype and Kazaa developer Jaan Tallin, and researcher Shane Legg.
This is the latest move by Google to fill out its roster of artificial intelligence experts and, according to Re/code, the acquisition was reportedly led by Google CEO Larry Page. If all three of DeepMind’s founders work for Google, they will join inventor, entrepreneur, author, and futurist Ray Kurzweil, who was hired in 2012 as a director of engineering focused on machine learning and language processing.

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***Presently there are approximately 143 Google mergers and  acquisitions listed.  I  have  only provided  the  most recent 43.  More  can be seen Here on Wikipedia***

~Desert Rose~
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List of mergers and acquisitions by Google

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This incomplete list is frequently updated to include new information.

Google's logo

Google is a computer software and a web search engine company that has been acquiring, on average, more than one company per week since 2010.^[1] The table below is an incomplete list of acquisitions, with each acquisition listed being for the respective company in its entirety, unless otherwise specified. The acquisition date listed is the date of the agreement between Google and the acquisition subject. The price of each acquisition is listed in US dollars because Google is headquartered in the United States. If the price of an acquisition is unlisted, then it is undisclosed. If the Google service that is derived from the acquired company is known, then it is also listed here.
Google has acquired over 100 companies, with its largest acquisition being the purchase of Motorola Mobility, a mobile device manufacturing company, for $12.5 billion. Most of the firms acquired by Google are based in the United States, and, in turn, most of these are based in or around the San Francisco Bay Area. To date, Google has divested itself of three ^[2] business units: Frommers, which was sold back to Arthur Frommer in April 2012;^[3] SketchUp, which was sold to Trimble in April 2012;^[4] and Google Radio Automation, which was sold to WideOrbit in 2009.^[5]
Many Google products originated as services provided by companies that Google has since acquired. For example, Google's first acquisition was the Usenet company Deja News, and its services became Google Groups. Similarly, Google acquired Dodgeball, a social networking service company, and eventually replaced it with Google Latitude. Other acquisitions include web application company JotSpot, which became Google Sites; Voice over IP company GrandCentral, which became Google Voice; and video hosting service company Next New Networks, which became YouTube Next Lab and Audience Development Group.
Following the acquisition of Israel-based startup Waze in June 2013, Google submitted a "10-Q" filing with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) that revealed that the corporation spent US$1.3 billion on acquisitions during the first half of 2013, with US$966 million of that total going to Waze.^[6]

100	August 1, 2011	Dealmap	One deal a day service	USA	—	Google Offers	[121]
101	August 15, 2011	Motorola Mobility	Mobile device manufacturer	USA	$12,500,000,000	Android, Google TV, Patent portfolio	[122]
102	September 7, 2011	Zave Networks	Digital coupons	USA	—	Google Offers	[123]
103	September 8, 2011	Zagat	Restaurant reviews	USA	$151,000,000	Google Places, Google Maps	[124][125][126]
104	September 19, 2011	DailyDeal	One deal a day service	GER	$114,000,000	Google Offers	[127]
105	October 11, 2011	SocialGrapple	Social media analytics service	CAN	—	Google+	[128]
106	November 10, 2011	Apture	Instantaneous search	USA	—	Google Search	[129]
107	November 14, 2011	Katango	Social circle organization	USA	—	Google+	[130]
108	December 9, 2011	RightsFlow	Music rights management	USA	—	YouTube	[131]
109	December 13, 2011	Clever Sense	Mobile apps	USA	—	Android	[132]
110	March 16, 2012	Milk, Inc	Social networking service	USA	—	Google+	[133]
111	April 2, 2012	TxVia	Online Payment	USA	—	Google Wallet	[134]
112	June 4, 2012	Meebo	Instant Messaging	USA	$100,000,000	Google Hangouts	[135]
113	June 5, 2012	Quickoffice	Productivity Suite	USA	—	Google Docs	[136]
114	July 20, 2012	Sparrow	Mobile apps	FRA	$25,000,000	Gmail	[137][138][139]
115	2012	WIMM Labs	Android powered smartwatches	USA	—	Android	[140]
116	August 1, 2012	Wildfire Interactive	Social media marketing	USA	$450,000,000	Google, Google+	[141]
117	September 7, 2012	VirusTotal.com	Security	ESP	—	Google	[142][143]
118	September 17, 2012	Nik Software, Inc.	Photography	USA	—	Google, Android	[144][145][146]
119	October 1, 2012	Viewdle	Facial recognition	UKR	$45,000,000	Android	[147][148]
120	November 28, 2012	Incentive Targeting Inc.	Digital coupons	USA	—	Google Offers	[149][150]
121	November 30, 2012	BufferBox	Package delivery	CAN	$17,000,000	Google Shopping, Android	[151][152]
122	February 6, 2013	Channel Intelligence	Product ecommerce	USA	$125,000,000	Google Shopping
123	March 12, 2013	DNNresearch Inc.	Deep Neural Networks	CAN	—	Google, Google X	[153]
124	March 15, 2013	Talaria Technologies	Cloud computing	USA	—	Google Cloud	[154]
125	April 12, 2013	Behavio	Social Prediction	USA	—	Google Now	[155]
126	April 23, 2013	Wavii	Natural Language Processing	USA	$30,000,000	Google Knowledge Graph	[156]
127	May 23, 2013	Makani Power	Airborne wind turbines	USA	—	Google X	[157]
128	June 11, 2013	Waze	GPS navigation software	ISR	$966,000,000	Google Maps	[6]
129	September 16, 2013	Bump	Mobile software	USA	—	Android	[158]
130	October 2, 2013	Flutter	Gesture recognition technology	USA	$40,000,000	Google, Android, Google X	[159]
131	October 22, 2013	FlexyCore	DroidBooster App for Android	FRA	$23,000,000	Android	[160]
132	December 2, 2013	Schaft.inc	Humanoid robots	JPN		Google X	[161]
133	December 3, 2013	Industrial Perception	Computer Vision	USA		Google X	[161]
134	December 4, 2013	Redwood Robotics	Robotic Arms	USA		Google X	[161]
135	December 5, 2013	Meka Robotics	Robots	USA		Google X	[161]
136	December 6, 2013	Holomni	Robotic wheels	USA		Google X	[161]
137	December 7, 2013	Bot & Dolly	Robotic cameras	USA		Google X	[161]
138	December 8, 2013	Autofuss	Ads and Design	USA		Google X	[161]
139	December 10, 2013	Boston Dynamics	Robotics	USA		Google X	[162][161]
140	January 4, 2014	Bitspin	Timely App for Android	CHE		Android	[163]
141	January 13, 2014	Nest	Home automation	USA	$3,200,000,000		[164][165]
142	January 15, 2014	Impermium	Internet security	USA		Google+	[166]
143	January 26, 2014	DeepMind Technologies	Artificial Intelligence	UK	$400,000,000		[167]

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Google buys British artificial intelligence firm DeepMind

Google has bought UK start-up DeepMind for a rumoured $400 million

Photo: AFP

By Sophie Curtis, and agencies

9:48AM GMT 27 Jan 2014

Google is buying London-based artificial intelligence company DeepMind Technologies, according to reports.

Technology news website Re/code, which first reported the deal, said the price was $400 million (£242m), which would make it Google's largest European acquisition so far. Other reports suggest the acquisition price was closer to $500 million.

Google declined to confirm the figure, while privately-held DeepMind was not immediately available for comment.

DeepMind was founded by 37-year-old neuroscientist and former teenage chess prodigy Demis Hassabis, along with Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman.

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