By Seowebmount
After Facebook's acquisition of Bangalore-based Little Eye Labs
earlier this month, it's Google that has now bought a three-year-old
startup that had two Indians — Vish Ramarao and Naveen Jamal — as
co-founders and offices in Bangalore and California. The startup,
Impermium, had a third co-founder Mark Risher.
Jamal
was based in Bangalore and looked after the office here, while Ramarao
and Risher were based in California. All three had previously worked
together in Yahoo and came out of it in 2010 to found Impermium. The
startup focused on building security products for websites.
Impermium's
website now has just a note from Risher, who was the CEO, with the
headline 'Impermium is joining Google'. It goes on to say: "By joining
Google, our team will merge with some of the best abuse fighters in the
world. With our combined talents we'll be able to further our mission
and help make the internet a safer place. We're excited about the
possibilities."
Impermium had received $9
million in funding from a host of venture firms including Accel
Partners, AOL Ventures, Charles River Ventures and Highland Capital
Partners. Google has not disclosed the terms of its deal with Impermium.
Acquisitions
of India-based startups by the likes of Google and Facebook are
expected to provide a big boost to the startup ecosystem. Not too many
India-based startups have had great exits yet, but the latest instances
look to be changing that trend. Software product startup associations
like iSpirt are actively engaged in trying to marry Indian startups with
global ones.
Jamal is originally from
Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu, went to the US to study, worked as a software
engineer in a small US company and then joined Yahoo in 1998. He moved
to Bangalore around the time Impermium was being founded and established
the office here. Ramarao is from Bangalore, went to the US for higher
studies, and has since been there.
Prior to
Impermium, all three co-founders were in Yahoo Mail, where they dealt
with problems of spam, web security and fraudulent account creation. In
an interview to TOI early last year, Risher said they realized that the
problems they dealt with weren't an issue with just Yahoo's services but
rather a problem with every website on the internet, and that
encouraged them to found Impermium.
Risher said
the company had built a number of services that worked as a
risk-determination system, which could help identify when an account had
been compromised. The system calculates the risk from parameters like
where you accessed the account from, the device software and historical
usage pattern of the links you're posting.
And
Risher then had this to say about his new employer: "Security is always a
balance between convenience and safety. And a complete overhaul (of the
password system) becomes difficult. Google talked about an RFID ring
that you would wear and which would transfer a secure certificate. Yes
it would work but it would be a hassle and everybody would have to buy a
reader. It's not going to happen overnight."
resource: http://www.techgig.com/tech-news/editors-pick/After-Facebook-Google-buys-startup-with-Indian-link-21280
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