Snap Acquires Location Analytics Startup Placed

Snapchat's parent company Snap has acquired Placed - a Seattle-based startup that operates a consumer location analytics platform - for an undisclosed sum. The company will help Snapchat show advertisers how their ads on its platform bring traffic to their products and services.

"Over the past 12 months, Placed has measured more than $500 million (roughly Rs. 3,220 crores) in media spend to store visits, across thousands of campaigns and hundreds of partners, cementing Placed as the leader in location-based attribution," David Shim, CEO and co-founder of Placed wrote in a blog post.

He said that by partnering with Snap, the company "will do even more".

Snap operates the popular Snapchat app, which counts 166 million daily users that use the app more than 18 times per day.

The tech giant has acquired more than 10 startups since it was established and recently bought a drone maker and mobile search app Vurb.

Last month, a report by market research firm eMarketer revealed augmented reality is gaining fast traction in the US thanks to Snapchat Lenses and Facebook Stories. The market research firm defines AR users as individuals of any age who engage with augmented reality content at least once per month via any device.

In 2017, 40 million people in the US will engage with some form of augmented reality (AR) at least monthly, up 30.2 percent over last year, the report said. Meanwhile, VR - driven mainly by 360-degree photos and videos on Facebook and YouTube - has been slower to catch on in the US, and will not reach mass adoption in the foreseeable future, according to eMarketer's first forecast on AR and virtual reality (VR).

Written with inputs from IANS​