Interestingly, Groupon was founded by a group of former Google employees in San Francisco. This would definitely be an asset for Groupon.
Talking about Team Adku, there were a number of lofty goals launched by Adku, which included “improve the world”. However, the base line was “to create a solution that required large computing resources” for addressing “real-time analysis of the vast data that’s being created every second on the web and building a machine learning prediction engine to optimize eCommerce.”
The news of the acquisition was announced on the official Adku blog, wherein the CEO and co-founder Ajit Varma explained the details precisely. He said,
Adku started a year and a half ago from our passion for big data and a desire to create products that would instantly and automatically give users a more personalized experience. We had ambitious goals and some of the most rewarding and busy days of our lives. We were also fortunate to assemble an amazing team of engineers and investors and create something special.
We started talking to Groupon to bring our technology to more customers and quickly realized that we wanted to be a deeper part of a company that people love and is empowering merchants and customers in a way that’s never been done before.
We’re looking forward to joining forces with Groupon to have an impact on millions of users and to share in Groupon’s vision of reshaping local commerce.
We want to express our sincere appreciation to our customers, advisors, and investors. We can’t begin to thank you enough for all the help you’ve given us.
Adku opened up a bit more than a year and a half ago, but it has already gained momentum. This is because it has considerable venture capital backing from Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures and True Ventures.
Noting the financial disclosures, there was no detailing. However, TechCrunch reports that the deal might be worth more than $10 million as a “team + technology play.” If that is to be assumed, things can go out pretty smooth, as having the same team working on the desired projects would help Groupon take things further.
On the Groupon front, they had yet another notable purchase in the recent past, when then purchased Mertado, a members-only access site with exclusive deals on home-related products and a social commerce community.
Here are a few tweets, rejoicing the acquisition.
