Microsoft announced today that it is acquiring San Francisco-based Mobile Data Labs, maker of popular mileage-tracking app MileIQ. The team will join the Office and Outlook team and continue to develop the app, along with other mobile productivity software.
The companies say the acquisition will help Microsoft reach more small-business owners and independent workers, who rely on apps like MileIQ to monitor mileage and track expenses.
“In the US alone, there are over 55 million small business employees, entrepreneurs and other mobile professionals,” said Rajesh Jha, Microsoft corporate vice president of Outlook and Office 365. “Mobile Data Lab’s MileIQ app takes advantage of sensors in modern mobile devices to automatically and contextually capture, log and calculate business miles, allowing users to confidently claim tax deductions.”
The Mobile Data Labs team will stay in San Francisco and Microsoft expects most of them to stay with the company. Financial of the deal were not disclosed.
The MileIQ app is the top-grossing finance app in iTunes, a position it has held for 20 months, and has been the top-performing app on the Google Play store since launch.
“Under Satya Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft has been on a path of tremendous innovation; the people in the company feel it, the products show it and the market has responded,” Mobile Data Labs CEO Chuck Dietrich wrote in a blog post. “Microsoft’s ambition to reinvent personal productivity and business processes couldn’t be more aligned with our goals.”
As an addition to the Outlook and Office group, Mobile Data Labs is joining cross-platform, mobile-focused teams from other recent Microsoft acquisitions, like Acompli (which became the new cross-platform Outlook app), Sunrise (which is getting rolled into the Outlook app soon) and to-do list app Wunderlist.
The Redmond-based tech giant has also recently acquired the startup behind sales gamification platform FantasySalesTeam to bolster its business-focused offerings.
