Yahoo Buys Astrid And Will Shut It Down In 90 Days
We don't know what Yahoo paid, but Astrid was founded in 2008 and had only raised $400,000 in 2012 from investors that included Google Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners, according to its Crunchbase profile.
The company says that it has accrued about 4 million users and that in 90 days, they'll be told how they can retrieve their data. Astrid is no longer accepting new users and will refund those who paid for a year's worth of service in advance.
Astrid launched in 2008, and was an early app tackling email management and to-do lists. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows. It's integrated with Siri, too, so you can add your to-do entries via voice commands.
If not clear yet what Yahoo plans with Astrid's tech, but perhaps better inbox management to compete with Mailbox, or more personalization features to compete with Evernote.
Here's the blog post about the acquisition made by cofounder Jon Paris:
Friends of Astrid,
We are thrilled to announce that we have been acquired by Yahoo!. When we set out to build Astrid, we sought to help as many people as possible become happier, healthier and more productive. We’re really excited to join the mobile team and continue this work with Yahoo!’s goal of “making the world’s daily habits more inspiring and entertaining.”
Over the next 90 days, Astrid will continue to work as is, and we will no longer be accepting new premium subscriptions. To make future changes as easy as possible, we’ll be in touch with users shortly to share how to download data.
We are grateful to the more than 4 million of you who have downloaded our apps, to those who have shared Astrid with friends, family and co-workers, and to all who encouraged us with your kind words along the way. You honored us in so many ways, and we won’t forget you.
We are also grateful to our many mentors and investors:
Thomas Korte and AngelPad for your sage advice and assembling a tremendous community of entrepreneurs.Google Ventures and the team at the Startup Lab for teaching us so much.Nexus Venture Partners, TMT Investments, and the amazing angel investors who provided the resource and support we needed to build our products and company.Jump Associates and LUXr for helping us understand our users and build products people love.
To all of you, in both big and small ways you have helped us achieve the success we enjoy today. It is our sincere hope that our work will help you come closer to your own dreams.
Warmly,
Jon Paris & the Astrid Team
*Note: Yahoo! will be administering refunds to eligible users who have paid for annual subscriptions, Power-Pack and Locale Plugins.