Google is on a shopping spree lately and today comes the rumor that Google is in later stage discussions to acquire Yelp, the startup focused on localized content and user-generated reviews of places like restaurants, reports TechCrunch. The news comes at the heal of Google’s interest in expanding in the localization space, which is sure to be a trend in 2010. Yelp has so far taken $31M in institutional funding over four rounds with the last round at $200M in pre-money valuation. Founded in 2004, the company has become the leader in its space and now counts 25M monthly unique visitors, though comScore pegs the traffic at just 9M monthly global uniques.

TechCrunch also reports Yelp’s 2009 revenues to be at $30M with 2010 projected revenues at $50M. Google is expected to spend as much as $500M or more to purchase Yelp, according to sources the site spoke with. Its sources also peg the likelihood of the deal finalizing at 80%. That’s good enough for us. Kudos to Yelp for making it happen!