Most companies will only acquihire once a startup is pretty mature, and has thousands/millions of people relying on its service--even though it would be equally easy to judge whatever attributes of the startup's product/service signals "good team, do buy out" from much earlier on in its lifecycle. I had never even heard of Hackermeter, but on reading the pitch in the article, and seeing a bit of the product, it's immediately obvious what kind of tech/UX/design/product-sense expertise would be required to produce it, and what I could do if I could put the same talent behind my own venture.
Maybe this should be the start of something. I'm picturing a PR-wire-like service for startups to post their MVPs, which bigcorps can subscribe to, and offer to buy out the talent that catches their eye before the service is even out of closed beta. (In fact, just to go a bit crazy: imagine if the use of this service became commonplace. Acquihiring a startup with traction might be considered "bad business!")