Snapchat is buying a search engine startup - but it's not clear why
It appears the ephemeral messaging app wants to get its hands on Vurb’s staff.
SNAPCHAT IS IN the process of acquiring mobile-search app Vurb – but the chat giant seems more interested in the startup’s people than its current product.
According to Business Insider, the deal totals around $200 million – divided into 75% stock and 25% cash – and includes a high number of retention payouts to current employees, including a $75 million multi-year retention package for Vurb’s CEO and founder Bobby Lo.
This is second high-profile buyout from Snapchat this year following March’s acquisition of Bitstrips, the startup behind Bitmoji, in a deal worth over $100 million.
Vurb CEO and founder Bobby Lo
Older than Snapchat
Based in San Francisco, Vurb is five years old – a year older than Snapchat.
In 2013, it announced $2 million in funding from a group that included the CEOs of Salesforce, Dropbox and Paypal. It later raised $8 million from Redpoint Ventures, Stanford University, Tencent Holdings and others.
Incorporating information from other apps like Yelp, Google Maps, Uber and Rotten Tomatoes, Vurb makes suggestions for events and entertainment based on users’ selected interests, location and the weather.
Billed as a solution to “app overload”, the search engine presents results in the form of ‘Vurb cards’, which can be saved as wish lists. Users can then message friends directly in the app and share these lists.
It is not clear yet how exactly Vurb will work within Snapchat’s platform as neither company has commented on the acquisition yet. Pundits speculate that the search engine will be incorporated into Snapchat’s advertising strategy.
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel
A former management consultant at Boston Consultant Group, Vurb founder Lo started his first company when he was 15 years old and co-founded Yodle, which sells online marketing to small businesses.
The acquisition comes as other social media apps, most notably Instagram, try to mooch in on Snapchat’s territory. The Facebook-owned photo app last month launched ‘Instagram stories’ to compete with the fast-growing ephemeral messaging company.
According to the most recent figures from Snapchat, there are 150 million daily users of the chat app, more than Twitter.
