Google Acquires Social App Developer LabPixies

Google announced this week that it has purchased Israeli developer LabPixies, creator of the popular Flood-It! series for the iPhone and iPod Touch. LabPixies' free-to-play color puzzler Flood-It! has been downloaded more than two million times since its launch in March of 2009. Follow-up releases include Flood-It! 2, the match-three puzzle game Line Up, and the sheep-herding strategy game Round'em Up. In addition to its App Store efforts, LabPixies created a number of games and productivity gadgets for the iGoogle personalized homepage service, along with several social networking applications for Facebook, MySpace, and Google's Android platform. Startup company profiling blog TechCrunch estimates that Google paid between $15 million and $25 million for the LabPixies acquisition. LabPixies formed in 2008 with an initial $1 million round of financing. The LabPixies development team will be based in Google's Tel Aviv office, and will work to expand iGoogle's presence across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.