LivingSocial Gains Wealth Of Ruby on Rails Expertise With InfoEther Acquisition

In what appears to be mostly about the talent of its founding team, LivingSocial has moved to acquire Ruby on Rails consultancy outfit InfoEther.

The social ecommerce giant, which has raised $232 million in venture capital to date and has been getting nearly as acquisitive as its rival Groupon lately, says InfoEther’s agility and expertise will enhance its ability to innovate more effectively.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

InfoEther is a leading technology consultancy shop specialized in the open-source Ruby software development language and its related Web development framework, Ruby on Rails, which is the basis of the technology upon which LivingSocial is based.

Originally founded in 2001, InfoEther is believed to be the first US-based company that generated revenue from Ruby, which was created in Japan. Since 2007, it has specialized in the Rails framework, in more than 40 client engagements internationally.

Chad Fowler, InfoEther’s CTO, comments on the acquisition thusly:

“We are thrilled to bring the energy and agility from our consulting practice into the amazingly talented LivingSocial team and help change the face of local commerce.”

LivingSocial recently acquired a majority stake in Let’s Bonus, and in 2010 picked up adventure company Urban Escapes.

The company says it expects to reach 300 markets in 2011.