WalmartLabs "Acqhire" Gives Social Shopping App Luvocracy a Soft Landing

@WalmartLabs, the tech arm of Walmart’s e-commerce operations, has agreed to acquire social shopping site Luvocracy.

The terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, but it is essentially a soft landing for the 16-person team behind Luvocracy. Walmart plans to shut down the service.

Luvocracy was one of a host of startups attempting to make online shopping a more social experience. Prospective shoppers visited the app to browse through images of products uploaded by other individuals. Luvocracy’s team scoured the web to find the best available price for each product, which shoppers could then order directly through the Luvocracy app.

Founded in 2011, Luvocracy had been adjusting headcount and reallocating resources this year in an attempt to find a sustainable model for the business, according to a person familiar with the company. Ultimately it decided to sell instead of attempting to continue trying to go it alone.

The company had raised at least $11 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, CrunchFund and Marissa Mayer. Luvocracy CEO Nathan Stoll, a well-regarded former Google product manager who also co-founded social search engine Aardvark, is among the team joining @WalmartLabs.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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