Priceline Group bought Qlika for around $3 million, VentureBeat reported citing a Priceline source that confirmed the deal.
Priceline Group is an online ticketing and reservation company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut while Qlika is an Israel-based startup that focuses on "micro-location" ad campaigns. As part of the deal, the six employees that make up Qlika will now be part of the Priceline team. They will specifically be supporting the Singapore-based discount booking travel website Agoda which Priceline bought seven years ago. The other companies in Priceline's portfolio include Booking.com, Rental Cars and Kayak, the report said.
The person who confirmed the deal told VentureBeat, "It's a small deal, the $3 million number is roughly accurate."
Information from its website showed that the "QTree big data analysis engine" deploys what it calls "rocket science" to come up with "micro-market" advertising approaches that work. The acquisition also highlights the ways executives are seeking to make money in mobile advertising by keeping users of smartphones, tablets and wearable devices engaged to their screens. Established in 2012, Qlika was able to secure close to $2 million in venture capital to date, the report said.
According to its website, Qlika said its service is now utilized by resellers or firms that sell advertising packages to local clients like local search agencies and yellow pages firms. It is also used by those who are in lead generation or directory which advertises different services in many locations targeting particular customers. It also works with national brands, allowing franchises to initiate their particular personalize ad campaign and share it with other branches.
Qlika is based in Ramat Gan, Israel and was founded by a "team of young and restless entrepreneurs" who are very experienced in learning algorithms and mass scale systems. They all graduated magna cum laude in MSc (Physics, Mathematics) and each served more or less 10 years in IDF's elite technological units, its website said.
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