AOL buys Israeli startup Yedda

AOL to buy the question-and-answer-service for an undisclosed sum

Time Warner's US Internet giant AOL is once again using Israeli technology to help it battle its rivals. This time AOL's answer to Google and Yahoo! is Israeli start-up Yedda from Kfar Malal, the company said.

Only a few days after buying Quigo, AOL has decided to buy the question-and-answer-service site. Yedda's 20 employees have developed a semantic search engine that can analyze questions and requests. The site invites users to post questions, and then asks others to answer the questions or match them to already existing answers.

Financial terms were not disclosed. The site also supplies quality ratings for content. This is the first Israeli Web 2.0 technology exit.

Yedda raised US$2.5 million since its founding in 2005. Those funds came from private investors and Genesis Partners. The company will remain function as a subsidiary working with AOL's search division, communities and instant-messaging groups.

The founders of Yedda are CEO Avichay Nissenbaum, 41; chief technology officer Yaniv Golan, 35; vice president of research and development Osher Frimerman, 44; and entrepreneurs Daniel Verhovsky and Eran Sandler.

Nissenbaum said that after the deal is completed and Yedda's technology is integrated into all of AOL's content sites, Yedda will become one of the biggest information sites in the world.

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