Palo Alto-based startup Cyanogen announced Monday it has raised $80 million from investors including Twitter, Qualcomm, Azim Premji and Rupert Murdoch to accelerate its development of a mobile operating system based on Google’s open-source Android that aims to become the world’s third largest.
In a statement, Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster thanked investors “who are supporting us in building a truly open Android.”
In an interview with Fortune‘s Miguel Helft, McMaster was more daring, warning that “we’re putting a bullet through Google’s head.”
Fortune reports: “Fifty million people already run Cyanogen on their phones, the company says. Most went through the hours-long process of erasing an Android phone and rebooting it with Cyanogen. McMaster is now persuading a growing list of phone manufacturers to make devices with Cyanogen built in, rather than Google’s Android.”
The startup is also close to a deal with Microsoft to run Microsoft’s mobile apps, such as search engine Bing, Fortune reported.
Above: Cyanogen logo
