Google buys four-month-old AI startup Halli Labs

BENGALURU: Marking as one of the first significant startup acquisitions by Google, the search engine giant, has acquired Bengaluru-based Halli Labs that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to solve old problems.

Halli Labs was founded by Pankaj Gupta, who has previously worked at Twitter and Indian hospitality start-up Stayzilla.

The acquisition comes just four months after Halli’s public debut, and Google indicates that the group will be joining its Next Billion Users team.

A quick reference from Halli Labs’ Medium blog says that the team at Halli are thrilled to share the news that they are joining Google. Halli’s introductory blog post says that the company was founded with the goal of applying modern AI and ML techniques to old problems and domains — in order to help technology enable people to do whatever it is that they want to do, easier and better.

And by joining Google’s Next Billion Users team, Halli will help get more technology and information into more people’s hands around the world.

Google’s Caesar Sengupta confirmed the acquisition on his Twitter account. “Welcome @Pankaj and the team at @halli_labs to Google,” he said. “Looking forward to building some cool stuff together.”

Halli’s team will continue working on AI and ML technologies to resolve on issues related to providing fresh water, sanitation, and other basic needs.