Ribbit Jumps on BT Acquisition Offer

Techcrunch reports that Mountain View, CA voice 2.0 platform company Ribbit has been acquired by British Telecom (BT) for a modest $55 million.

Ribbit’s main service offering is called Amphibian, and offers a variety of personal call management features with web + mobile + social network integration.

Ribbit also spawned an API and corresponding developer platform and offered an open and freely downloadable version of their Ribbit API, which uses Flash via Adobe Flex Builder.

Ribbit aimed to create an “iTunes”-like ecosystem with their Ribbit Store, the idea being to allow developers to distribute and monetize applications built using the Ribbit API.

Ribbit showcased several clever applications built using AIR and their Ribbit API. One application emulates the look, feel and some of the functionality of the Apple iPhone, the other is a very artistic take on the softphone called ChalkboardPhone.

BT is reportedly looking to leverage Ribbit to compete with Grandcentral, which was bought by Google just over a year ago for a similar price. The Google/Grandcentral acquisition likely served as a valuation benchmark for Ribbit. Congratulations to co-founders Ted Griggs, Crick Waters and Peter Leong.