Nishtha Kanal

Facebook’s acquisition of Indian startup, Little Eye Labs is done and it’s time Google caught up too. The Internet giant has picked up a three-year-old startup with an India connect, called Impermium.

The startup is a security company that builds products for websites and has offices in Bangalore and California and dealt in the cyber security space. Impermium’s CEO and Co-Founder, Mark Risher, wrote in a post on the website announcing that the company had formally been acquired by Google. It isn't clear whether the company has been acquired for their technology or for the talent, a common way of acquiring a talented technology team from a young startup team, in Silicon Valley, dubbed acqui-hire. Neither party has disclosed any numbers either.

“When we founded Impermium three years ago, our mission was to help rid the web of spam, fraud, and abuse. As sites gain in popularity, criminals and miscreants are never far behind, and Impermium has worked hard to defend some of the largest and fastest-growing sites,” he wrote, “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.”

Besides Risher, two Indians have been instrumental in making Impermium – Vish Ramarao and Naveen Jamal, reports The Times of India. While Ramarao and Risher were based in California, Jamal took care of the company’s needs in Bangalore. All three of them were reportedly colleagues in Yahoo when they decided to break out and found Impermium.

Google was last seen purchasing smart home startup Nest for $3.2 billion, the amount which Google will be paying completely in cash. The company is best known for its products like Nest Learning Thermostat and Protect smoke detector.

Facebook had recently purchased its very first Indian startup, Little Eye Labs. The company officially announced that it had been taken over earlier this month. Little Eye Labs essentially creates tools to help mobile app developers to optimise their products’ performance. Whether for the technology or the talent the interest of big Internet giants in Indian startups is great news for the local startup community.