"TechCrunch" said, "The deal was apparently done
at least two months ago, but the companies have
delayed releasing the news.
The Maxthon Browser was developed by the Chinese,
specifically for that market. "TechCrunch" says,
"At the very least we expect the strategic deal
to involve replacing the default search option in
the browser from the Baidu search engine in China
and Yahoo in other countries with Google search.
The deal may also go beyond search and involve
integration with other Google services directly
into the browser. Maxthon would then be promoted
on Google as a preferred browser. Maxthon has had
over 80 million downloads of its browser, and
over half of its users are in China.
Maxthon-originated searches may account for up to
25% of total Baidu traffic, according to one
source."
Maxthon has raised $6 million to date. Seed
financing came from Morten Lund and WI Harper in
March 2005, and CRV invested around $5 million in
the company in March 2006.
"TechCrunch": The $1 million investment is part
of a much larger strategic deal.
Technology blog "TechCrunch" reports that Google
Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG) has acquired a minority stake
in the Israeli-Chinese start-up Maxthon
International Ltd., the developer of the Maxthon
Browser, for $1 million, and that the investment
is part of a "much larger strategic deal" between
the two companies.