Facebook Buys Mobile Data Specialist

Facebook has agreed to acquire Israeli mobile data company Onavo, whose software helps app users and developers optimise their use of data, and whose Onavo Insights division is billed as 'the first mobile market intelligence service based on real engagement data'. Terms were not disclosed.

Based in Tel Aviv, Onavo employs about forty staff and was founded as recently as 2010. The buy will give Facebook its first office in Israel. Co-founder and CEO Guy Rosen said the company's goal had always been 'to help today's technology consumers and companies work more efficiently in a mobile world' and said the plan post-acquisition was to 'continue running the Onavo mobile utility apps as a standalone brand'.

Onavo should also help Facebook CEO mark Zuckerberg forge ahead with another project, Internet.org, for which he joined in August with other high profile online companies, aiming to help the five billion people around the world without Internet access, to get it.

In a statement, the social media giant said: 'Onavo will be an exciting addition to Facebook. We expect Onavo's data compression technology to play a central role in our mission to connect more people to the Internet, and their analytic tools will help us provide better, more efficient mobile products.'

Web site: www.onavo.com .