You probably haven't heard of Where, a mobile Yelp-like app that serves local coupons and personalized recommendations, but you've heard of its new owner, eBay.
On Monday eBay announced the acquisition of Where, a Boston-based startup that functions as both a local advertising network and the publisher of its own mobile deals app.
According to eBay, Where serves ads and hyper-local deals to "millions of mobile customers" in North America, and counts more than 120,000 retailers, brands, and small merchants as its clients.
The Where mobile app is available now in the Apple App Store and Android Market, but in the next few months eBay will integrate PayPal's mobile payment technology as its first order of business post-acquisition.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"Today's announcement really just builds upon some recent acquisitions we've made to strengthens our position in local commerce," an eBay spokesperson told PCMag.
Within the last 12 months eBay has made at least four acquisitions related to location and mobile technology: at the end of March eBay agreed to purchase GSI Commerce for $2.4 billion, which the company said will help it better compete against traditional e-commerce sites like Amazon as eBay moves away from its online auction roots. Among the site's most lucrative businesses is its PayPal Payments arm.
Last December eBay acquired Critical Path Software, a mobile software development startup that effectively doubled eBay's mobile team. And in June it bought RedLaser, a bar-code scanning technology.
Finally, last December eBay bought Milo, a local shopping search engine that provides real-time information about inventory in local stores. By the end of March it had incorporated Milo in its Local pages, adding an opt-in beta to check the inventory of local stores.