After weeks of rumors, Israeli face recognition startup Face.com officially announced yesterday its acquisition by Facebook. The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed, but two unnamed sources familiar with it told AllthingsD that the price was in the neighborhood of $60 million.
The amount is significantly below the $100 million that had been rumored previously, but almost three times higher than the startup’s reported $23 million valuation in its last round of financing in September 2010.
Yandex, which participated in round, holds a 18.4% stake in the Israeli startup. The Russian search giant may swap it for a stake in Facebook, Russian business daily reported a few weeks ago.
Face.com’s facial recognition technology is behind the Photo Finder application for Facebook, which scans public photos in your social network and suggests tags for untagged faces; it is also in use in Yandex Fotki, the photo hosting service of Yandex.
The Russian company has stakes in another Israeli startups: TimeBooker, which serves small and mid-sized service companies with an innovative booking solution.
