Facebook is constantly expanding in order to stay relevant and offer users plenty of different products through their website. This mean that Facebook has been discovering smaller companies to acquire and incorporate into the Facebook system. So far, in 2014, Facebook has acquired seven companies, and these are the largest ones.
4. Little Eye Labs – $15 Million
Little Eye Labs is an Indian start up that was purchased by Facebook for $15 million in January. The company focuses on creating software tools to analyze the performance of mobile apps on the Android platform. Facebook has been majorly focused on increasing and improving their mobile presence on all operating systems.
3. Branch – $15 Million
Back at the start of 2014 in January, Facebook acquired a web conversation platform company called Branch, out of New York. Branch was a start up founded by Josh Miller, who also created a Potluck link-sharing service. The goal of adding the Branch staff to Facebook is to help people connect with others more based off of their interests because of all the user data Facebook has.
2. Oculus VR – $2 Billion
Oculus VR was only founded back in 2012, but the virtual reality technology company made big strides in the VR industry, which was enough to catch the attention of Facebook. Oculus VR is a head-mounted display that gives users a first person look at whatever they are doing. The concept was strongly steered towards the video game industry and being able to put players in the game with the first person virtual reality design. Facebook paid $2 billion to acquire Oculus VR, so it will be interesting to see what plans they have for incorporating virtual reality.
1. WhatsApp – $19 Billion
WhatsApp is a popular messaging system app that allows users to message one another through wifi in the same way that Apple’s iMessage does. What’sApp already had a huge following and very large user base across a large variety of operating systems. This was a huge acquisition for Facebook because it would allow them to gain staff and innovators that could improve their messaging system, which is now a separate app on mobile devices.
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
