@Walmart Labs, the online advertising subsidiary of retail chain Walmart, has acquired US-based advertising software producer Adchemy for an undisclosed amount, providing Microsoft with an exit.
Microsoft invested in a $61m series E round raised by Adchemy in 2011 that also included venture capital firms August Capital and Mayfield Fund. Adchemy had raised more than $117m since it was founded in 2004, with past investors also including management consultancy firm Accenture.
Adchemy had developed a range of different advertising technology offerings during the course of its history, but at the time of is acquisition it was focusing on semantic search technology.
The motive for the purchase however mostly revolved around staff acquisition, according to TechCrunch, a notion backed up in a blog post by Jeremy King, Walmart’s chief technology officer.
“This latest acquisition continues our quest to build best-in-class e-commerce capabilities in-house,” King said. “We have been hiring highly-talented teams organically and are augmenting that by acquiring talent to build our own technologies that can scale with our global business.”
Adchemy is the twelfth company purchased by @Walmart Labs since it was established in 2011. Previous acquisitions include Torbit, Inkiru and Grabble.