Yahoo Buys And Shuts Down Seattle Startup Sparq
Terms of the sale were not disclosed but this likely wasn't an expensive buy for Yahoo.
Sparq was founded in 2010 and had raised $1.7 million, reports Alex Wilhelm, who first spotted the acquisition.
It made something called a "deep link" technology for mobile apps. This means it could link to a specific spot on a mobile app from another site. So a link in an email or press release could send a person directly to the mobile app's purchasing page, instead of to the mobile app's landing page.
For instance, Catalog Spree, which makes an iPad app that has catalogs from more than 350 retailers, used Sparq to link to specific items in catalogs from emails.
Sparq was based in Seattle and had about a dozen employees, according to its LinkedIn page. Before founding it, Sparq CEO Jesse Chor worked as a developer for Expedia.
We've asked Yahoo if the employees are joining Yahoo. The post announcing the purchase by Chor hints that they are:
Yahoo Acquires SPARQ
I am thrilled to announce that SPARQ has been acquired by Yahoo. We've come a long way from our humble beginnings and are proud to have created a service and product that has touched hundreds of millions of people.
We can't thank our customers, investors, advisors, friends, and family enough for all of their support over the years. We are uber passionate about mobile - we've been striving to build the best mobile platform possible, and are excited to continue upon that goal with Yahoo. Words cannot describe how ecstatic we are to be joining such an amazing team with such an inspiring mission. We see endless opportunity ahead.
We will be terminating our current service, and are reaching out to existing customers with support details. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help during this transition period by contacting support@sparq.it .
On behalf of the entire SPARQ team, thanks again for all for your support and we hope to work with you again soon at Yahoo.
Sincerely,
Jesse Chor
Founder & CEO