Flipkart acquires Israeli startup Upstream

India's leading e-tailer Flipkart on Tuesday said it has acquired Israel-based Upstream Commerce startup for an unspecified amount to strengthen its selection and pricing capability.

"The acquisition enables us to help sellers boost sales and serve customers better with Upstream's advanced and data science-based intelligent solutions," said the city-based retail giant Walmart-owned company in a statement here.

A leader in real-time pricing and product assortment optimisation solutions, the eight-year-old Tel Aviv-headquartered startup builds cloud-based, automated competitive pricing and product analysis tools.

"The acquisition will also help us to have an overseas centre to support our business in India with its 20-member team based in Israel," a company spokesperson told IANS.

Post-acquisition, the startup will continue to work in Tel Aviv and become one of Flipkart's global centers for data science work.

"Upstream's solutions will enable us to give insights to our sellers, help them optimise product assortment, pricing strategy and find gaps in the market," noted the statement.

The buyout is in line with Flipkart's vision to solve e-commerce challenges through innovations and will help provide wider selection and better pricing for its customers.

"We have spurred e-commerce growth across the country and solved local problems through innovations. With Upstream, we will have tech and talent presence across Asia, Israel, the US and some global hubs for innovation," said company's Chief Executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy on the occasion.

Backed by YL Ventures as a leading investor since its inception in 2010, the startup will be one of Flipkart's excellence centres to do cutting-edge data science work.

Upstream Chief Executive Amos Peleg said Flipkart's choice to have presence in Israel through the acquisition was a vote of confidence in his team, technology and domain expertise.

"We share the same passion for technology and vision for the contribution of data science in future and success of online retail as Flipkart," said Peleg.

Though Flipkart has been developing machine learning algorithms to improve the selection and pricing parametres for sellers and helped thousands of small and medium businesses get online, it is betting on Upstream providing it with automated pricing and planning better selection.

"Upstream's expertise will be a huge addition for us and our in-house AI capabilities, which will share actionable insights with sellers to help them make informed decisions on products and their pricing," added Flipkart's Marketplace Head Anil Goteti.

The 11-year-old e-shopping portal claims to have over a lakh sellers and offers a whopping 80 million products across 80 categories, including smartphones, books, media, consumer electronics, furniture, fashion and lifestyle. - IANS