E-commerce marketplace eBay announced yesterday it is set to acquire Israel-based big data technology developer SalesPredict in a deal that will provide an exit for internet company Yandex.
SalesPredict has built technology that uses big data analytics to predict customer spending patterns and sales conversion, and eBay plans to use its technology to boost its data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.
The deal will follow eBay’s purchase of Expertmaker, the Sweden-based developer of a platform that automates retail and commerce processes, in May this year. It has not disclosed how much it is paying for SalesPredict.
SalesPredict had raised $5.1m in funding, including $4.1m in a 2014 series A round co-led by Yandex and venture capital firm KG Capital that included Pitango Venture Capital, AfterDox and RSL Venture Partners, all three of which invested in the company’s $1m seed round in 2013.
Amit Menipaz, eBay’s vice-president and general manager of structured data, said: “SalesPredict’s deep expertise in predictive analytics and machine learning will contribute to eBay’s structured data efforts.
“For our buyers, it will help us better understand the price differentiating attributes of our products, and, for our sellers, it will help us build out the predictive models that can define the probability of selling a given product, at a given price over time.”