Yahoo acquires social Web browser-maker Rockmelt

Yahoo today announced it has acquired web browser company Rockmelt. Terms of the deal announced Friday weren’t disclosed. It’s the 20th acquisition that Yahoo Inc. has completed since Marissa Mayer became the Sunnyvale, Calif., company’s CEO nearly 13 months ago.

Rockmelt was started in 2009 with an aim to improve web browsing and launched a desktop browser in 2010. It followed it up with an iOS app that let users browse the Internet without having to enter a URL. The company had raised $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners, Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital and industry legends Bill Campbell, Ron Conway and Diane Greene. Rockmelt says that the apps and web browser will be shut on August 31 and users can export their data before that.

“The parallels between Yahoo! and Rockmelt are obvious: we share a common goal to help people discover the best personalized content from around the web. We can’t wait to integrate the Rockmelt technology into our platform as we work to deliver the best experiences to our users in new and exciting ways,” Yahoo’s Mike Kerns and Adam Cahan said in a statement.

Some of that technology could help Yahoo in its effort to bring in more traffic and revenue from mobile devices, one of Yahoo’s top priorities.

Although small, Rockmelt attracted a fair amount of attention because of its pedigree. The company’s financial backer include Web browser Marc Andreessen, who has established himself as one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists since first making his mark as a co-founder of Netscape Communications.