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Online calling service Skype, which Microsoft said earlier this year it would acquire for $8.5 billion, announced its own acquisition on Sunday: according to a blog post from Skype CEO Tony Bates, the company is buying GroupMe, a New York-based startup just over a year old that offers users a way to send group messages from their phones.
Though Skype did not offer details on the purchase price, according to All Things Digital, Skype is paying “around $85 million for the company,” which was valued at $35 million during a $10 million round of funding raised in November of last year. Earlier this month, GroupMe, which has around 20 employees, celebrated its one-year anniversary in New York. Business Insider notes the company has “a few million users” and sends “sends more than 100 million texts per month.”
