Groupon announced late Monday that it had acquired Whrrl parent company Pelago. For the uninitiated, Whrrl is a Foursquare-like app that encourages real-world discoveries of stores and local businesses, which doubles as location-based advertising for a user's peers.
But this is more than just another notch in Groupon's belt.
Groupon has been rapidly expanding, and sometimes into questionable areas -- most recently, offering deals with a real-estate agency. But this move shows the group-buying company is following a strategic master plan and moving into the location-based advertising game.
Groupon CEO Andrew Mason and former Pelago CEO -- and before that, former Amazon.com executive -- Jeff Holden posted on their respective sites explaining why it's such a great fit:
"Their obsession with real-world serendipitous discovery, or 'Anti-Search,' is core to Groupon's mission," Mason wrote in a blog post yesterday. "It's about discovering what you didn't know, right in your backyard."
"You might think at first this is strange ... But it actually makes a ton of sense," explained Holden in his blog post yesterday. "The mission alignment of the two companies and the fact that we've taken very different approaches is a big part of what makes this marriage non-strange, and in fact, very complementary and compelling."
Of course, Holden and Mason are speaking with bedroom eyes for each other's companies as the ink is still drying on their deal.
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But there's good advice here for budding entrepreneurs: Make strategic acquisitions that are a good fit for your portfolio.
