HopStop.com, an upstart application, was bought by tech giant Apple today. A spokesperson from Apple confirmed the acquisition, according to Tech Crunch's Anthony Ha.
HopStop is an online service which offers taxi, bicycle and walking directions to its users. Apple's own mapping application was negatively received by the public. Analysts said that the company needs to acquire technologies to append to their Maps service, which users ridicule and deem unreliable.
According to sources, HopStop raised an undisclosed amount of fund in its round of financing from investors such as angel investor Yaron Galai, chief executive officer and co-founder of Outbrain. Outbrain integrated HopStop into their service system with the launch of the HopStop Live! Feature, a crowdsourcing transit alert.
HopStop stated that it has almost 2 million concurrent users worldwide.
"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans," said an Apple representative.
Join the Conversation