Dropbox has bought the stealth messaging startup Droptalk, which is responsible for tools used to share links privately with friends through Chrome extensions.
The startup's messaging apps were being made for Android, iOS, and the web, according to Venturebeat.
Droptalk was founded by former developers from social networking services Facebook and LinkedIn.
The products were not made publicly available, as the company had only recently released its browser add-on into a limited beta. Neither company disclosed the terms of the deal, TechCrunch reported.
Dropbox became interested in Droptalk due to its ability to work with a user's cloud storage. Because of this feature, users could see who was updating which files during a conversation, as well as who was adding files to a shared folder.
Other recent acquisitions made by the San-Francisco-based company included features that focused mostly on creating and sharing photos, Venturebeat reported. Dropbox's purchase of Droptalk recently and workplace chat startup Zulip earlier this year show Dropbox is looking to make messaging an important feature.
Droptalk announced the deal in a blog post, saying that the company was founded about a year ago with the goal of changing the way people communicated with each other and did their work. The startup looked to offer better tools for sharing and communication so people wouldn't have to rely on emailing each other as much, TechCrunch reported.
The company's founding team, which includes CTO Anand Prakash, serial entrepreneurs Ashok Bhardwaj and Rakesh Mathur, Nirmesh Mehta, and Manveer Chawla, who will all be joining Dropbox as part of the deal.
Mathur is responsible for the founding of Webaroo and building its social messaging platform, which reached more than 60 million users over three years. Bhardwaj help Aricent become a successful company. Prakash, who also worked at Webaroo, most recently worked at LinkedIn, while Chawla used to work for Facebook, TechCrunch reported.
Droptalk will not be accepting beta signups anymore.
