“Happier, healthier, more productive.” That was the goal of mobile app Astrid, and now Yahoo is taking up the mission as it’s just acquired the to-do app developer. Co-founded by a former Palantir engineer, Tim Su, Astrid says that it has four million users, who as of September 2012 logged 30 million plans on the platform.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Astrid had only raised $400,000 from investors that included Google Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Jack Herrick and TMT Ventures.
The app will remain online for another 90 days before it’s shut down by Yahoo. In the meantime, it’s not accepting any new users.
It’s unclear whether this is an acqui-hire or whether Yahoo intends to use some of Astrid’s technology for its bigger mobile strategy.
With Astrid, Yahoo is picking up Tim Su’s big data expertise but also skills from Jon Paris, the co-founder and CEO, who before Astrid had also founded another startup, Graceful Tools, an event-planning site. And before that, according to his CrunchBase entry, Paris had been a minister, with one previous role including Campus Director for the Stanford Chapter of InterVarsity, the Christian student group.
“We’re really excited to join the mobile team and continue this work with Yahoo!’s goal of ‘making the world’s daily habits more inspiring and entertaining,’” Paris notes on behalf of the Astrid team in a note on the site.
Launched back in 2008, Astrid was a pioneer in the email management and to-do app space. Now it runs on iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows and desktop and mobile web. The app lets you create lists, reminders, and its Siri integration on iOS lets it act as a voice-based command system.
If some of Astrid’s technology does end up getting used at Yahoo, the acquisition gives Yahoo a potential lever to compete with apps like Mailbox, Evernote and Wunderlist. On the email front, one of the features that Astrid touts is that it can help users clean up their inboxes in 30 minutes.