Minnesota mobile technology firm DoApp Inc. announced today it has sold its mobile real estate platform to publicly traded CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), a global property information, analytics, and data-enabled services provider based in Irvine, California.  Seven DoApp employees, 40% of its workforce (which is based in both Rochester and the Twin Cities area), are now CoreLogic employees — including Dave Borrillo, previously DoApp’s COO, now a VP of mobile technology at CoreLogic. None of the employees has to relocate. Other terms of the deal were not announced.

The DoApp-developed mobile real-estate platform has been the technology foundation for the CoreLogic “GoMLS” app.  GoMLS gives real estate agents and consumers access to in-depth listing and property data using their mobile devices. DoApp said the GoMLS app has been downloaded by homebuyers and sellers over 400,000 times to date.

DoApp’s management team: Wade Beavers, CEO (left), Dave Borrillo, COO (right), and Joe Sriver, Founder (foreground).

In an interview today with Wade Beavers, CEO of DoApp, I learned that the all-cash transaction actually closed October 31, but DoApp waited until today to release the news. In a November 6 press release, CoreLogic mentioned “the GoMLS development team has transitioned to CoreLogic,” without specifically saying this team was made up of DoApp employees, but CoreLogic has not yet otherwise announced the acquisition transaction as of today.

Since its founding in 2008 by Joe Sriver (an early Google employee), DoApp’s mobile technology offerings, in addition to real estate, have been in publishing and advertising. These platforms have encompassed responsive-designed web sites as well as applications for all major mobile operating systems. Beavers said DoApp’s content publishing and advertising platforms will now be the major focus for the company. Its products based on these platforms already have more than 220 clients across multiple industries such as broadcast, newspaper, professional sports, and government. DoApp will also be releasing a self-publishing solution called Readful, which Beavers said will simplify content creation, discovery, and promotion with mobile devices.

Beavers said this transaction will allow DoApp to position its business for further growth, without having to seek a venture capital infusion.  He said the company has become cash-flow positive and profitable without taking on outside equity investors. You can read Minnov8’s considerable previous coverage of DoApp here, going back to 2010.

CoreLogic reported third quarter results on October 22 that included a 3% increase in revenue to $367.5 million fueled by 23% growth in data and analytics. Operating income from continuing operations increased 27% to $77.8 million, and net income from continuing operations was up 15% to $49.7 million.

[Disclosure: DoApp is one of the companies in my client equity portfolio. I helped launch the firm in 2008, serving as its VP Marketing.]

photo credit: Office of Governor Mark Dayton

It is done. Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed legislation late yesterday (Chapter 241, SF1740) which requires that all new smartphones sold in Minnesota after July 1, 2015, have an anti-theft “kill switch” function. A kill switch function enables smartphone owners to remotely disable their smartphone if it is lost or stolen, rendering the devices useless to thieves and reducing the incentive for a growing wave of violent cell phone thefts.

“This law will help combat the growing number of violent cell phone thefts in Minnesota,” said Governor Dayton. “I thank Representative Atkins, Senator Sieben, Senator Dziedzic, law enforcement officials, and the many student advocates who championed this legislation.”

More on the Governor’s blog post is here.

The Verge published this article late last night which had some interesting perspective that calls this bill in to doubt and whether it’s a moot point anyway:

Strangely, the actual text of Minnesota’s “kill switch” bill doesn’t actually require a kill switch at all. The letter of the law simply states that phones be “equipped with preloaded antitheft functionality or be capable of downloading that functionality,” without specifying what “antitheft” means or what sorts of protections the software might actually offer.

However, that might be a moot point: nearly every major player in the smartphone industry has already promised to offer remote lock and remote wipe functionality by next July. Minnesota’s law and other legislation like it are simply codifying what smartphone manufacturers and US cellular carriers are already working towards. The law gives those companies until January 2015 to explain how antitheft software will help.

It remains to be seen if this will be an important tool for consumers—and actually slow down or stop thefts of smartphones—or there will be a workaround thieves will discover and use anyway. We are also uncertain whether or not a “killed” smartphone can simply be sent offshore and re-enabled on an overseas carrier’s network.

Hopefully built-in kill switches won’t also be targets of black-hat hackers who install malware on smartphones and are thus capable of remotely killing a phone.