Wal-Mart Stores has agreed to acquire social media company Kosmix Corp., the Bentonville, Ark.-based company said April 18. The retail giant will fold the Kosmix team into its newly formed @WalmartLabs division, which focuses on social and mobile commerce technologies.
Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman of Wal-Mart Stores, said in a statement that the company will work with the Kosmix team “to accelerate the development of our social and mobile commerce offerings.”
Through the deal, Wal-Mart also acquires Kosmix’s “Social Genome” platform, which organizes social network content and creates profiles of users, products, places and other topics.
Wal-Mart said it expects the acquisition to be completed during the first half of this year.
Kosmix’s investors include Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment company of Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
Wal-Mart did not immediately return requests seeking comment. Kosmix referred requests for comment to Wal-Mart’s statement, a Wal-Mart representative and a blog post by Anand Rajaraman, Kosmix’s cofounder. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
