Google buys DealMap a 15 month old Deal Startup

There has been speculation for last few days that Google is going to acquire a discount deal startup named The DealMap.

The Menlo Park startup, on Monday, put an end to the speculation, by telling the world that they are thrilled to be acquired by Google. There’s no word on regarding the actual financial details of the deal, from any of the parties though.

With the acquisition of DealMap, Google’s acquisition tally in the last two years, crosses 70 companies, covering a wide range of technologies and skills.

A bit about DealMap and what it means to be acquired by Google:

The DealMap is a 15-month old company. A rather late entrant to the deal market place dominated by other local deals/ deal-of-the-day sites, like GroupOn, the start-up managed to grow quickly to serve over 2 million users with its website and mobile apps.

In the blogpost, DealMap underlines that it believes Google provides the ideal platform to help them accelerate their growth and fulfill their mission. Google, they believe, will help them innovate in new and unexplored areas of commerce.

Google sees the buy as, picking the right property at its infancy, a step which will benefit its commerce offerings, with DealMap helping it build even better products and services for consumers and merchants.

Why Deal Marketplace so Hot of late:

There are a few reasons to it. With the meteoric rise of social networking in recent years, local bargain has crossed the boundaries of individual bargain and geography (people can get group bargains for friends present miles apart). The improvements in locations based services has complemented the precision of finding a bargain as well. In short, the mix of online social networking and location based services, a market is created which is largely local in scope but is linked to a national or even international network.

Deal marketplaces like LivingSocial and Groupon have benefited by managing the above mix perfectly.

Another important factor which helped deal sites, to continue standing, after the initial success, is the growing affluence in the developing markets; which provided deal sites one important thing at the right moment and continue providing that – Users. With a large number of people in developing countries, being introduced to fine dining, and fine living each day, deal sites can see such markets for growth.

No wonder, Google attempted to purchase Groupon near the end of 2010 for a reported $6 million, but the deal couldn’t materialize. But as deal sites were a hot commodity among private investors too, Groupon instead chose to go public, with an IPO in the second half of 2012.

As a prime player on web, Google can’t afford to remain absent at deals market, hence it chose to develop its own discount deal service, called Offers. The site got launched at the end of May this year.

What makes the acquisition important for Google is that, Offers only serves Portland, New York City, and the San Fransisco Bay Area; with Dealmap's resources (including over 450 deal sources) the search giant can expect to expand its reach. --------

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