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Google

Google Assistant Should Improve IQ With Acquisition of Q & A Startup Superpod

By
Renae Reints
Renae Reints
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By
Renae Reints
Renae Reints
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January 3, 2019, 12:34 PM ET

Google has acquired the startup Superpod, an app allowing users to post questions and receive answers from experts within an hour, Axios reports.

The roughly $60 million acquisition includes hiring the startup’s founders and obtaining some assets—a deal that will likely boost the ability of Google Assistant to accurately answer questions.

Further aspects of the acquisition are being kept quiet. Superpod shut down its app in September “as part of a transition into a larger project.”

“We can’t share any details at this time, but we’re trekking onwards toward the same north star and are very excited about the future,” the founders wrote in a parting message.

Google confirmed the acquisition in an email to Fortune but declined to disclose further details about the deal.

Superpod was started by former Google employees Sophia Yang and William Li in 2016 on the premise that people will always help others—and in a timely manner. Most questions posted to Superpod were answered within an hour, Yang and Li wrote.

The California-based company raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Precursor Ventures, Social Capital, the House Fund, Charlie Cheever, and Cheever’s firm Graph Ventures, according to AngelList.

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