Back in May, when I profiled the original Dogpatch Labs, launched by Polaris Venture Partners in San Francisco, I snapped the accompanying picture of a mannequin wearing an AppJet t-shirt. AppJet was a Y Combinator company a few summers back that had moved into the Dogpatch space on Pier 38. Now, it turns out, the company has also become Dogpatch’s first exit: AppJet and Google announced last night that the search company has acquired the real-time collaboration software startup—maker of the web-based word processor EtherPad—for an undisclosed amount.
According to the EtherPad blog, “The EtherPad team will continue its work on realtime collaboration by joining the Google Wave team.”
Polaris’s Mike Hirshland tweeted today that this was Dogpatch’s “first exit.” Other companies, notably LOLapps and Thing Labs, are listed on the Dogpatch site as alumni. “Lotsa hatchlings have left the nest,” Hirshland explained in an e-mail. AppJet, though, is the first Dogpatch denizen to be acquired.
You can read our profile of Dogpatch Cambridge here.
Author: Robert Buderi
Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative.
Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
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