Which startup was co-founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton?

Which startup was co-founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton? WhatsApp was co-founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton.

Koum incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California in February 2009 after he and Acton, both former Yahoo employees, began developing a mobile app. The first concept focused on showing status updates in a phone’s contacts list, but Apple’s push-notification technology helped turn those status changes into a practical messaging system.

WhatsApp’s name was chosen because it sounds like “what’s up.” The service initially gained traction as a phone-number-based messenger and expanded with photo sharing, voice calls, video calls, and group chats. Unlike Signal or Telegram, which are separate messaging services founded by different teams, WhatsApp is the product associated with Koum and Acton.

Facebook agreed to acquire WhatsApp in 2014 for approximately $19 billion. Koum later left Facebook, and Acton departed in 2017; the app continued under Meta’s ownership.