Nick D’Aloisio’s news aggregation app Summly shut down by Yahoo

News aggregation app Summly, created by UK tech entrepreneur Nick D’Aloisio and sold to Yahoo for $30m, is shutting down.

Created by then 17-year-old D’Aloisio after he taught himself to code, Summly was once widely considered to be the epitome of success.

Now, four years later, Yahoo, recently sold to Verizon for a staggering $4.5bn, has announced plans to shut down its News Digest app built using Summly’s technology by the end of this month.

Now 21, London-born D’Aloisio created Summly in an attempt to condense full-length stories into short snippets of information thus making it easier for people to consume news on their smartphone.

Speaking to the Financial Times in 2012, the then teenager, said: “My age group likes to get content in concise bullet points . . . Our summaries are easy to read, fit the screen, look beautiful and download quickly.”

The app topped the App store charts and received investment from well-known investors such as Li Ka-shing, a Hong Kong-based business magnate and billionaire.

Brian Chesky, co-founder of Airbnb; Mark Pincus,  co-founder of Zynga; Ashton Kutcher; Stepehn Fry and Horizon Ventures also backed the startup, which raised $1.53m across two rounds.

According to the Financial Times, D’Aloisio declined to comment on Summly’s closure, but a spokeswoman for Yahoo said that it had been on the road map for a while.

“[It] is an opportunity for users to get the same great news coverage but the added bonus of being able to join the conversation with a passionate community and world class editors.”

D’Aloisio is considered to be the world’s youngest VC-funded entrepreneur, having first raised funds aged 15.