Flipkart acquires Upstream Commerce to optimise pricing of products

The Tel Aviv company's technology will help sellers on Flipkart price products more competitively

Walmart-backed e-commerce marketplace Flipkart has acquired Israeli-based Upstream Commerce for an undisclosed amount as it looks to further optimise the pricing of products on its platform to better compete with rival Amazon.
 
Upstream Commerce is a retail price optimisation platform that tracks prices and availability of products across several retailers including Walmart, Amazon, Barnes&Noble and Costco to give its customers real time insights that help them be more competitive.
 
“They’ve been around for years and serve multiple e-commerce customers around the world. Their focus will shift a lot towards Flipkart, but will continue to serve their other customers as well,” said Anil Goteti, Vice President and Head of the Flipkart Marketplace and 2GUD.
 

While Flipkart had built such automated solutions internally, it says the Tel Aviv firm has built some of the most cutting edge technologies in this space, making it a strategic bet. The 20 member team of Upstream Commerce will continue to work out of Israel post the acquisition.
 
Avendus Capital was the financial advisor to Upstream Commerce for this deal.
 
Using the technology, sellers on Flipkart will be offered suggestions to drive their goals, whether it be to drive their top line, bottom line or ship more units. For customers on Flipkart, the company says with this acquisition they can be assured they’re getting the best pricing from sellers and also a more wide selection as Upstream Commerce begins delivering sellers insights on what products customers are looking for.
 
Indian laws forbid Flipkart from directly influencing prices of products being sold on its platform.

 
“With the Upstream acquisition, we will now have tech and talent presence across Asia, US and Israel, some of the key global hubs for innovation. The team at Upstream Commerce is highly talented and as we welcome them to Flipkart we are also looking forward to making Israel one of our excellence centres to do cutting-edge data science work,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart, in a statement.
 
Goteti added that Upstream Commerce was Flipkart’s first foray into Israel which could even lead to more acquisitions in the future, given the kind of cutting-edge technology work that was being done out of there. He, however, declined to specify which areas Flipkart was actively looking to augment through acquiring technology firms.

 
Flipkart’s pace of acquisitions is seen to be improving post the acquisition of 77 per cent stake in the company by Walmart. Earlier this month, the company also announced the acquisition of Liv.ai, a startup building voice technology that allows easy translation into regional Indian languages. It came a few days after the Competition Commission of India gave the Flipkart-Walmart deal a green light.
 
With $2 billion in fresh equity investment from Walmart, Flipkart is now quickly growing its capabilities to take on Amazon. Business Standard has previously reported that Walmart has agreed and even supported Flipkart’s proposal to make several strategic acquisitions in the near future in order to get into new businesses or augment existing capabilities.