Interesting little technology acquisition for Priceline after confirming it has bought Israeli startup Qlika.
Terms of the acquisition are unknown (Re/Code suggests $3 million), but a Priceline official says details will not be disclosed "because it's a very small transaction">
The startup focuses on micro-marketing campaigns on mobile. It allows brands to target specific consumer segments in a way that delivers hundreds of automatically targeted ads without having to increase the management component of delivering more ad campaigns.
The acquisition will likely boost Priceline's efforts at increasing efficacy of their local market advertising on mobile and increase the overall ROI of those campaigns.
The company created a proprietary data engine called QTree that is a "big data analysis engine, at the heart of the Qlika platform" that "uses 'rocket science' in order to optimize messages for each micro-market, while keeping the management of the campaign super simple."
The intelligent algorithm constantly learns and tweaks campaigns using this machine learning to improve efficacy at every point in the campaign's life.
Qlika emerged from the California incubator for Israeli companies based in Palo Alto, UpWest Labs, and raised $1.7 million prior to the acquisition.
The acquisition is the first since Pricelinesplashed out $1.8 billion in November 2012 to buy Kayak.