Alphabet acquired Aardvark, a transaction completed in February 2010.
Aardvark operates in Search (social search / Q&A), is based in United States (San Francisco, California). Aardvark was a social-search company whose technology let users ask questions in natural language and get answers from friends and their extended network. Its system analyzed each question's topic and routed it to people with relevant knowledge. Google acquired it to strengthen answering of specific questions better handled by a knowledgeable person than a webpage.
Add social/expertise-based question answering that complements web search for niche, specific questions.
Advisory firms were not disclosed for this transaction.