Apple Plucks Palo Alto’s WiFiSLAM

Big companies are on a shopping spree in Palo Alto, snapping up startups that add value to existing sites and technologies.

The latest announced acquisition is WiFiSLAM which, according to The Wall Street Journal, was purchased by Apple for $20 million.

WiFiSLAM is an alum of Stanford-affiliated incubator StartX. It was started in 2011. Apple confirmed the purchase to Macrumors, “The two-year-old startup has developed ways for mobile apps to detect a phone user’s location in a building using Wi-Fi signals. It has been offering the technology to application developers for indoor mapping and new types of retail and social networking apps. The company has a handful of employees, and its co-founders include former Google software engineering intern Joseph Huang.” 

In addition to WiFiSLAM, Palo Alto startups Tiny Post and Mailbox have been purchased within the past two weeks. The acquisition details of Tiny Post are unclear, while Mailbox was bought for an eye-popping $100 million.

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