Snapdeal Acquires Silicon Valley Startup Reduce Data

NEW DELHI: Snapdeal has acquired Silicon Valley-based startup Reduce Data, a programmatic display advertising platform, the New Delhi-based online marketplace announced.

While the financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, the Reduce Data team will join Snapdeal, as the latter's bid to build a world class discovery platform and associated tools for brands as well as over 200,000 sellers on the marketplace, the company said in a press statement.

"At Snapdeal, we are always on the lookout for talented people who come with specialized skills that augment our capabilities. Asif comes with 17 years of rich experience in building web scale technologies, product management and building highly specialized teams focused on a data platform and ad-tech products," Rohit Bansal, co-founder and chief operating officer, Snapdeal said.

This is the twelfth buyout announced by Snapdeal since 2010.

Founded in 2012 by Asif Ali, Reduce Data's platform uses artificial intelligence, real-time data and other tools, to help brands deliver advertising strategies for consumers across platforms and devices.

"We strongly believe that world-class technology innovations are happening here. The company has grown at a phenomenal pace in the last few years. We look forward to building world class technology products at Snapdeal and set new benchmarks for the industry in this space," Reduce Data Chief Executive Ali said.

The latest acquisition by Snapdeal, the country's largest online marketplace in terms of sellers transacting on its platform, comes less than two months after it acquired mobility solutions company Letsgomo Labs, also for an undisclosed amount, to improve its mobile technology capabilities.

Since the beginning of the new financial year, the New Delhi-headquartered company, which is backed by a host of strategic investors, including, Japan's SoftBank, China's Alibaba Group and Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, has continued its aggressive acquisition strategy, having announced four deals over the past five months.

In April, the company announced the acquisition of online recharge and payments platformFreecharge, for a reported $400 million. Separately, in May, it acquired mobile commerce startup Martmobi.

Co-founded by Wharton graduate Kunal Bahl and IIT Delhi alum Bansal in 2010, Snapdeal has targeted making up to 10 more investments in the current financial year, rapidly stocking up on ammunition to take on Flipkart and Amazon in India's fast-growing ecommerce industry, which is estimated to cross $300 billion by 2030, according to a report published by Goldman Sachs.

Earlier this week, CEO Bahl told ET that the company expects to finish FY 2015-16 as the country's largest e-commerce company, in terms of gross merchandise sales, in the process beating rival, and the country's largest ecommerce company, Flipkart.

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