In a recent acquisition, Flipkart has acquired an Israel-based start-up called Upstream Commerce. The move by India’s largest online retailer is a step towards supporting its consumer base with services such as real-time pricing and information about the products.
Prior to this, Flipkart also acquired an Indian artificial intelligence start-up Liv.ai in August. The second and the latest acquisition will aid Flipkart in establishing their market in Israel, which itself is a playground for the start-up market.
Speaking about the deal, Flipkart Chief Executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy said, “We will continue to be aggressive in building and getting global tech to solve for some of the hardest e-commerce problems. With the Upstream acquisition, we will now have tech and talent presence across Asia, US and Israel, some of the key global hubs for innovation. The team at Upstream Commerce is highly talented and as we welcome them to Flipkart we are also looking forward to making Israel one of our excellence centres to do cutting edge data science work.”
Upstream, Flipkart’s latest buy out is currently into building cloud-based and automated competitive pricing products and solutions. The company’s office in Israel will be a future base for Flipkart’s data science work.
“While we have been actively developing machine learning algorithms to further improve the selection and pricing parameters for sellers, we believe that through added capabilities from Upstream, we will be able to provide them with automated pricing and help plan better selection in the most accurate, timely, and profitable way. These capabilities will be a big addition for us and together with our in-house AI capabilities, we will be able to share actionable insights with our sellers to help them make informed decisions on products and their pricing,” said Anil Goteti, head of marketplace at Flipkart.
Krishnamurthy also said in a recent interview that Flipkart is keen on investing in new technologies. Especially in areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and more, the Walmart run online store will make big and bold investments and acquisitions in order to expand the palette of offerings they have for the clients.
The exact quote from Krishnamurthy stated, “We will not just consider it, we will chase it down.” This clearly indicates the company’s interest in venturing into newer tech-based areas that will help it make a better online platform by integrating them within Flipkart.
With an aim to diversify the business and decrease the reliance on smartphones and large appliances, Flipkart has been showcasing a high magnitude of interest in tech start-ups and internet based companies.
There were talks of Flipkart also buying stakes in Hotstar to be ahead in the game by not building a video streaming platform from scratch.
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