Snap has acquired Saturn, a calendar app for high school and college students. The company didn't disclose the terms of the deal but said that close to 30 of Saturn's full-time employees will be joining Snap as part of the acquisition.
It's not clear what exactly Snap has planned for Saturn, but the company confirmed to Engadget that the calendar app will continue to operate as a standalone service. It also suggested that the acquisition could help Snap bring calendar-focused features into Snapchat.
A calendar app may seem like an odd choice for Snap, but there's clearly a lot of overlap between the two services' users. According to Snap, about 80 percent of US high schoolers attend schools that support Saturn (its App Store page says it's available at more than 17,000 high schools). Snap is used by more than half of US teens, per Pew Research.
Saturn is also much more social than the typical calendar app. It has a Snapchat-like design that allows teens to easily share and compare their schedules with friends. It also supports features specific to many high school students' routines, like block schedules, rotation calendars and extracurricular activities. Saturn also has features for college students, though it doesn't seem to be as widely used among that slightly older demographic.
The startup, founded by Dylan Diamond (Saturn's CEO) and Max Baron (COO) has previously raised money from a number of high-profile investors, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions. Forbes reported in 2021 the startup had raised $44 million.
Jim Lanzone, the CEO of Engadget’s parent company Yahoo, joined the board of directors at Snap on September 12, 2024. No one outside of Engadget’s editorial team has any say in our coverage of the company.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/snap-is-acquiring-saturn-a-calendar-app-used-at-thousands-of-high-schools-160046915.html?src=rss
