Apple has acquired Color Labs, the developer of the Color mobile social network. The deal became known from the legal proceedings between the co-founders of the company, TechCrunch reports.

One of the founders of Color Labs, Adam Witherspoon, filed a lawsuit on November 19 against the current head of the company, Bill Nguyen. In the lawsuit, Witherspoon, who is no longer employed by Color Labs, accused Nguyen of intimidating and humiliating company employees.

Among other things, Witherspoon noted that Color Labs' main product, the Color social network, "failed" in the market and that the company's "key assets" were sold to Apple. The plaintiff noted that Nguyen denied him the opportunity to join Apple along with other Color Labs employees, instead offering him monetary compensation.

Rumors about the purchase of Color Labs by Tim Cook 's company began to spread in mid-October 2012, but they never received official confirmation. Witherspoon's lawsuit is the first to document that the deal actually took place.

According to TechCrunch, the purchase of Color Labs cost Apple seven million US dollars; other sources cited amounts ranging from two to five million dollars. In 2010-2011, investors invested about forty million dollars in the company.

The Color social network, designed for sharing photos, videos and text messages, launched in March 2011. The developers have released social network clients for Android and iOS; In addition, an application for working with Color appeared on Facebook .

The Color service did not gain much popularity among users: in September 2011, it had less than one hundred thousand users, despite the fact that Color applications were downloaded more than a million times immediately after launch. On November 19, a message appeared on the project’s website that Color would cease operations forever on December 31, 2012.

Apple bought a mobile social network for sharing photos and videos