Little Eye Labs Co-Founder Kumar Rangarajan confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that the Indian startup was in preliminary talks with social media giant Facebook. Although he declined to disclose the details of the discussions, the Business Standard had earlier reported that Facebook was in talks to purchase the company. The report also said that an announcement of the deal could be made in the coming weeks.
According to the WSJ report, India is the second biggest market of Facebook in North America. At the end of June, it had over 82 million users. If the acquisition of Little Eye Labs does happen, the report said it would help Facebook grow its mobile services. Out of the total 1.19 billion Facebook users, the report said there were only 874 million users each month that use Facebook through mobile devices.
The company, backed by a group of angel investors and technology venture capital firm Ventureast, charges a USD 50 per month or USD 500 per year subscription fee to allow individual app developers to evaluate app performance on their Android platform, the report said. Its roster of clients includes Qualcomm Inc and Intel Corp, both chipmakers. Software firms Capgemini and Citrix Systems Inc are also clients of the startup. Rangarajan also told the WSJ that they intend to develop their software tools so that it can test apps for Microsoft's Windows and Apple's iOS operating systems.
Research company IDC Vice President Jaideep Mehta told the WSJ, "The mobile platform or mobile channel, in the next 18-24 months, will become the No.1 access to Facebook. Facebook really needs to figure out how to earn money from its mobile apps."
Investment bank Rutberg Analyst Rajeev Chand told the WSJ that the acquisition would be beneficial for Facebook since it would also enable the firm to acquire talent in the Indian mobile app space. It would also help the social media company deepen its relationship with app developers.
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