Online Product Data Firm PopShops Acquired

NYC-based Rakuten Marketing is to acquire Seattle technology firm PopShops, which provides online advertisers and publishers with a data analytics engine for intelligent product feeds. Terms of the buy were not disclosed.

Rakuten Marketing, which has offices in Australia, Canada, Japan and the UK as well as throughout the USA, is part of Tokyo-based Rakuten, and supplies technology and services for areas including affiliate marketing, retargeting, lead generation and loyalty.

PopShops was founded in 2006 and provides single-source information on millions of online retail products to advertisers and publishers, who can increase sales by distributing the most current product information. Following the deal, all employees of the newly named Rakuten PopShops will remain in the Seattle HQ and will report to President Rohinee Mohindroo.

Rakuten Marketing CEO Yaz Iida says the firm already had a long-standing partnership with PopShops and the team 'were already impressed with the quality of its analytics engine and ability to help drive online sales'. He adds: 'Through this acquisition, we'll continue to outpace the competition and strengthen our assets across all of the vital areas of digital marketing that will benefit from PopShops's powerful analytics engine.'

Ashish Pandey, MD of Rakuten PopShops comments: 'PopShops started with a single focus on being the top product and coupon feed platform and in just a few years, we were able to draw the attention of thousands of brand name advertisers and publishers. Today we celebrate the results of our efforts and look forward to our continued success as part of the global Rakuten Marketing family.'

Web site: www.rakuten.com .