14 DAY TRIAL // VoIP startup Gizmo5 is a hot property, apparently. Rumors of it being in talks to be acquired by Skype last month seemed valid at the time, but the deal never went through and, now that Skype has settled all of its lawsuits, it makes little sense. But it now looks like Google was also interested and, apparently, it has already bought Gizmo5 for a reported $30 million.
According to TechCrunch, the acquisition is a done deal and it should be officially confirmed shortly, though no announcement has been made yet. Gizmo5 is a VoIP company offering voice calls between its users, but also with other third-party services and to regular phone numbers.
The company was founded six years ago and has raised $6 million from private investors and a further unspecified sum from its founder and CEO, Michael Robertson, of MP3.com fame. The total value of the funding is believed to be at around $20 million.
That makes $30 million a rather poor exit, but, maybe, the VoIP business didn't turn out to be so profitable, or maybe the investors believe they'll do much better under Google tutelage. In any case, the company boasts some six million users. The desktop client, the Gizmo Project, offers voice-chat interconnectivity with Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger and, interestingly, with Google Talk.
It's not clear if this has played a role in the acquisition, but the company does bring several technologies that would fit neatly with other Google products and services and fill in an area Google doesn't have covered. Google already has voice-chat capabilities, but they are limited to its users. At the same time, Google Voice is beginning to pick up Steam, but it only provides a front end for now.
Gizmo5 already integrates with both Google Talk and Google Voice, so offering a complete service for enterprises and even end users based on the three makes perfect sense. And, with Google behind it, the new service may be even capable of taking on Skype, which has about 500 million users at this point in time.