Onavo helped influence Facebook’s decision to acquire WhatsApp. Facebook bought the Israeli mobile-analytics company in October 2013, only a few months before announcing the WhatsApp deal.
Onavo’s consumer apps collected information about mobile-data usage, while its Onavo Insights platform analyzed app popularity, engagement, and market share. Facebook used those analytics to monitor rapidly growing competitors and identify important trends in mobile communication. WhatsApp’s strong usage figures helped show Facebook how significant the messaging app had become.
The common mix-up is that Onavo was not itself a messaging service and was not the name of Facebook’s main social network research program. It was an analytics company and app suite whose data informed Facebook’s competitive strategy. Facebook announced the WhatsApp acquisition on February 19, 2014, for an eventual value of about $19 billion.