Indian ecommerce giant, Flipkart has made its first acquisition of the year by acquiring Sequoia Capital and Sandstone Capital backed ad network AdIQuity for an undisclosed sum.
AdIQuity was started out in 2006 as a search engine named Guruji.com. The company has now grown into a mobile ad network that allows app developers and mobile publishers to earn revenue from their mobile inventory. With this, the company also facilitates ad agencies, ad networks, and other media buyers to acquire global quality mobile traffic.
“AdIQuity has a history of mobile innovations, extremely valuable experience in the ad space and a talented tech team — all of which are a great strategic fit for Flipkart,” said Flipkart.
As per AdIQuity, its platform is used by over 15,000 app developers and publishers and reaches across over 200 countries. The platform has 25 billion ad impressions and 150 million active users on a monthly basis.
In 2008, Adiquity had raised $15 Mn from Sequoia Capital and Sandstone Capital. With its headquarters in Bangalore, Adiquity has offices across five other cities which includes Delhi, Mumbai, Jakarta, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur.
Its been seen that in order to expand their reach, operations, large ecommerce players in the country have been trying to tap the inorganic route. Both Flipkart and Snapdeal, the two most heavily funded ecommerce companies have been picking up companies to feed their expansion.
In May 2014, Flipkart had made one of the largest acquisitions when it bought fashion ecommerce player Myntra for around $350 Mn. On the other side, Snapdeal has also acquired a couple of startups including its recent acquisition of Exclusively & Wishpicker. Amazon India has also been investing in the inorganic route and recently it picked up stake in QwikCilver Solutions.
Let’s have a look at the acquisitions done by Flipkart and Snapdeal:
| Flipkart | Month/Year | Snapdeal | Month/Year |
| WeRead | Dec – 2010 | Grabbon.com | June – 2010 |
| Mime360 | Oct – 2011 | esportsbuy.com | April – 2012 |
| Chakpak | Nov – 2011 | Shopo.in | May – 2013 |
| LetsBuy | Feb – 2012 | Doozton.com | April – 2014 |
| Myntra | May – 2014 | Wishpicker | Dec – 2014 |
| AdIQuity | March – 2015 | Exclusively.in | Feb -2015 |
Must Read: A Look At How Indian Ecommerce Marketplaces Stack Up Against One Another
