Facebook purchases Chai Labs


16 Aug 2010

Facebook has bought out California-based search company Chai Labs. This follows a string of small company acquisitions for Facebook in recent months.

According to All Things Digital, “several sources” have claimed that Chai Labs was purchased for an estimated $10m.

The acquisition is said to have been more focused on obtaining the small company’s talent as opposed to getting the site itself.

Chai Labs claims to offer publishers the ability to customise “scalable, search-friendly sites in several verticals.”

It was founded by former Google AdSense executive Gokul Rajaram and its company advisors include Marc Adreessen, general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, Reid Hoffman, general partner of Greylock Partners and Joe Kraus, general partner of Google Ventures.

Its customers include NBC Local, Associated Content and Travel Ad Network.

In 2010, Facebook bought numerous small companies, such as photo sharing website Divvyshot and mobile location service Nextstop.

Chai Labs’ semantic search technologies focus on allowing media consumers to find accurate and current information with ease. The talent behind this could prove to be useful for Facebook in its continuing development of its services.