Price predicting startup Decide.com has been acquired by online commerce service eBay for an undisclosed amount. As a result, Decide.com will cease to operate on September 30, with 26 employees being transferred to eBay’s office in Bellevue, WA.
The deal has closed and we’re told that Decide.com’s data science team has accepted permanent offers to remain with the company, a good sign for eBay as it seeks to integrate the price prediction algorithm into its offering.
From Decide.com’s blog announcing the news to its community:
Since we started three years ago, we’ve been on a mission to bring you a more transparent shopping experience and help you feel more confident in your purchase decisions – in fact, we’ve been downright obsessed with it.
Over the past year, we began experimenting with eBay and discovered an exciting opportunity to apply our team’s strength in data and predictive analytics to help over 25 million eBay sellers make smarter decisions and be more successful. This is an exciting new chapter and the Decide team will be making the move to eBay’s new Seattle-area offices. By September 30, Decide services, website and mobile apps will no longer be available.
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The Seattle-based company was co-founded by Oren Etzioni, the founder of Farecast and Netbot and focuses on helping remove the stress out of buying consumer electronics and other items. Today, it has more than 150 product categories in its system that it can help provide useful insights to you when you decide to make that purchase, including in the electronics, appliances, and home & garden space.
In a way, Decide.com is all about helping you make that decision on where and whether you want to buy the big-ticket item. Saving money is good, no?
Integrating itself into eBay is a pretty smart move, but we wonder if there were other suitors, like Google, Microsoft, or even Amazon? But, as Decide.com helps you make choices on your purchases, why not have it be tied to a service where if you can’t find it in a store, use eBay to get it. And will we be seeing Decide.com’s technology integrated with PayPal as well and be brought to its mobile app?
It’s been said that the data scientists and engineers that transition over to eBay will be focused on building tools for eBay sellers helping them to better price their items. After all, if you’ve ever tried to sell an item on eBay, finding the right price to start out at can be difficult and nerve-racking. But it will certainly complement the company’s recent product push: “My Gadget“.
Decide.com has raised $17 million in funding (including $8 million in March) from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital firm, Maveron, and Madrona Venture Group, along with other angel investors.
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