Mobile start-ups Brightkite, Limbo to tango

Brightkite, one of the half-dozen or so companies vying for market share in the location-based social-networking space, has merged with another mobile start-up called Limbo. The official branding of the company will be Brightkite now, but its home base will now be at Limbo's headquarters in Burlingame, Calif.

Limbo's focus is on mobile games, as well as text-message alerts: sports scores, celebrity gossip, weather, horoscopes, and the like.

It's not totally clear how the two will merge their technologies, but a little bit of background was provided on the Brightkite blog. Brightkite will have access to Limbo's engineering team and back-end system, as well as relationships with cell phone carriers.

"We plan to move all Limbo accounts and key features to the Brightkite platform. Limbo users gain an enriched product, enhanced user interface, and new Brightkite friends," the post by co-founder Brady Becker read. "We expect this transition to happen within the next few weeks."

TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld reports that the deal was "nearly all stock" and that the company will have access to a $9 million funding round that Limbo raised in January.

[johnqh]

Translation:

Limbo has the engineering team and money, but don't have anything interesting to do, so they bought Brightkite in a stock deal.