The initial big news out of Facebook land when they bought Onavo was that they were expanding their presence in Israel, a country where they were conspicuously missing. The actual big news is that the technology they bring to the table could help get the internet out to the rest of the world.
Facebook has acquired Israeli startup Onavo to help it take over new markets.
Announcing the deal, Onavo said on Sunday that it was being acquired by the social network giant for an unnamed sum – which insiders in Israel’s high-tech community placed at as much as $200m.
Onavo’s ‘data-miser’ app was introduced for iOS in 2011, with an Android version following in 2012. While the popularity of multi-gigabyte mobile data allowances continues to rise, users could historically find themselves out of data — and out of luck — fairly quickly if they were fans of streaming videos, or other data-heavy activities. Onavo’s app compressed data using its own proprietary system, saving, the company claimed, as much as 80 percent of the load, depending on the app.