Pinterest Acquires Mobile Ad Firm URX
May 03 2016 - 1:40PM
Dow Jones News
Pinterest Inc. is again paying up to acquire talent as it builds
out an image search engine based on its users' intent.
The image-discovery site on Tuesday said it has acquired half
the staff at URX, a San Francisco mobile advertising service
co-founded by a former Google manager. As is the case with many of
Pinterest's purchases, this one was more about acquiring people
over tech, a company spokeswoman said.
URX's technology and assets will be shut down. But Pinterest
gains URX co-founder and chief executive John Milinovich, who will
join as a product manager. Before starting URX, Mr. Milinovich was
at Alphabet Inc.'s Google, where he worked on the Google Analytics
team and helped roll out the Google Offers coupon service.
About 15 URX employees, including the other three co-founders,
will also move over to Pinterest, joining the product-management,
engineering and partnerships team.
Pinterest declined to disclose financial terms of the deal,
which is its 11th acquisition. The deal was mostly comprised of
stock, according to a person familiar with the deal.
The company is replenishing its talent after losing some
high-profile managers in recent months, a common scenario at
startups in a rapid growth phase. Most recently, Pinterest's head
of engineering Michael Lopp left the company in April after joining
two years ago, according to the company spokeswoman. Mr. Lopp had
previously worked at Palantir Technologies and Apple Inc.
URX—started in early 2013 by four former classmates at the
University of California, Los Angeles—specializes in so-called deep
links on the mobile Web. In essence, it serves ads in mobile
browsers that take users to apps such as Spotify or SeatGeek where
they can take actions such as listening to a song or buying tickets
to a concert.
Deep linking has become increasingly important to Google,
Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and other Web companies as users shift
to mobile devices and spend more time in apps. The technology aims
to add ways to enable people to move seamlessly between specific
pages in different apps.
Pinterest says it was intrigued by the URX team's expertise in
matching user intent with results as it is builds a "discovery
engine" driven by smart recommendations. For example, if a user on
Pinterest starts a "board"—where people save a collection of
images, or "pins"—and names it "nursery," Pinterest would take that
as a cue to surface items such as cribs and other family-friendly
items.
At Pinterest, URX employees will work on search and discovery,
which focuses on understanding the data behind each pin; and rich
pins. Rich pins carry extra bits of information, such as the
ingredients for a recipe, and aim to help people take actions such
as installing an app or buying a product.
Pinterest, valued at $11 billion by investors last year, is
working to turn its service into a global one as it seeks to ramp
up its advertising business. The Wall Street Journal has previously
reported that Pinterest made about $100 million in revenue from
advertising in 2015.
URX, incorporated as AdLast Inc., had raised about $15 million
in funding from investors including venture-capital firms Accel
Partners and First Round Capital, and angel investors such as
actress Jamie Lee Curtis and former football player Joe
Montana.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 03, 2016 13:25 ET (17:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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