GRPN makes a strategic acquisition:
Groupon Acquires NYC-Based Startup Hyperpublic
Jason Kincaid
TechCrunch
February 16, 2012
Groupon has just acquired Hyperpublic, a NYC-based startup that’s spent the last two years building technology related to geo-location and the layers of information — like deals and events — that live on top of it.
Terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but CEO Jordan Cooper describes it as a “huge win for our team and our investors”. He adds that Groupon was after Hyperpublic’s technology — this isn’t a case of it acquiring the team alone.
Cooper, who is also a General Partner at Lerer Ventures, says that a portion of Hyperpublic’s team will be moving out to Groupon’s engineering offices in California, while others will be leaving the company to pursue other ventures post-acquisition. Cooper will continue in his role at Lerer, and he’ll also be assuming a role with Groupon (he says he can’t get into specifics, but that he’ll be spending a lot of time in California as well).
The startup’s developer platform is going to be shut down, with maintenance and support continuing through March 2 2012 — all data will be deleted after that. Developers can find a FAQ on transitioning their data here.
The startup was founded in 2010 by Cooper and Doug Petkanics, who leads the company’s engineering team and helped forge what Cooper describes as a very engineering-focused environment. Hyperpublic raised $1.5 million in 2010 — Cooper says that board members Jordan Levy (Softbank Capital) Ken Lerer (Lerer Ventures) were also instrumental in the company’s development.
Finally, Cooper points out that Hyperpublic — which has more APIs than it does user-facing services — is a decidedly tech-heavy company. Which breaks with the stereotype of NYC startups being more focused on social platforms and media than on building ‘hard’ technology (incidentally, I suspect this stereotype will fade in the next year or so as the NYC tech community continues to grow).
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