In Its First Acquisition, Byliner Buys Seesaw, The Startup Led By CoTweet Founders

Byliner, a startup offering a new approach to monetizing long-form journalism and fiction, just announced that it has acquired mobile developer Seesaw Decisions.

Seesaw launched an app of the same name that allowed users to collect opinions from friends, then followed it with Everlapse, an app for creating and sharing digital flipbooks. The company is also noteworthy for its team — it was founded by Aaron Gotwalt, Jesse Engle, and Kyle Sollenberger, who previously co-founded CoTweet (which was acquired by ExactTarget, which in turn was acquired by Salesforce).

Gotwalt will become Byliner’s chief technology officer, Sollenberger will be the vice president of user experience, and Engle is joining as an advisor. Seesaw’s four other employees are also joining Byliner, the company says.

“Byliner’s mission is to connect people to the stories and storytellers they love, and the amazing team that Aaron, Kyle, and Jesse have assembled will help us continue to deliver on that mission,” said Byliner President Deanna Brown in a press release.

I asked whether this is primarily a talent acquisition, and a Byliner spokesperson replied: “We have designs on some of their tool kit and we love the talent.” (I followed up by asking what will happen to the existing Seesaw and Everlapse apps, and I’ll update if I hear back.) They also confirmed that this is the company’s first acquisition.

The financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed. Seesaw’s investors include Freestyle Capital, Baseline Ventures, First Round Capital, and betaworks.

Byliner’s investors, meanwhile, include CrunchFund — which, like TechCrunch, was founded by Michael Arrington.

Update: And here’s what Byliner had to say about the existing apps: “We are going to build on the Everlapse app, and unsure on the Seesaw app for now.”