With machine learning and AI being the hottest trend in tech, eBay is also bolstering its efforts with the acquisition of Israel-based advanced analytics startup SalesPredict. And its not just efforts-bolstering thats happening, this could well be eBay’s attempt to become more like Amazon and automate processes within the company.
SalesPredict is the second addition to the carousel of machine learning powered analytics startups acquired by eBay in the recent past. It follows in the footsteps of Expertmaker, another startup that specializes in providing intelligent solutions powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data analytics.
SalesPredict, in a similar manner, provides a software platform that monitors individuals’ buying preferences and tries to predict consumer behavior for online shopping. It can also help professionals, like you improve sales conversions through predictive analytics and big data.
The financial terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed by either parties, but is expected to be somewhere in the ballpark of $20 – $30 million, as reported by Geektime. eBay plans to leverage the predictive analytic capabilities of the company to support its artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science efforts. It will contribute to data processing and enrichment, specially with respect to inventory management.
In addition to beefing up its data science department to compete with Amazon, the e-commerce player is also bringing a host of SalesPredict employees to join its Israeli Development Center in Netanya. Yaron Zakai-Or, the co-founder and CEO of SalesPredict will now serve as the Director of Product Management & Technology, while the other co-founder and CTO Kira Radinsky will join the dev. center as Director of Data Science.
Commenting on the destined partnership, Amit Menipaz, VP and GM for Structured Data at eBay adds that,
SalesPredict’s deep expertise in predictive analytics and machine learning will contribute to eBay’s structured data efforts. For our buyers, it will help us better understand the price differentiating attributes of our products, and, for our sellers, it will help us build out the predictive models that can define the probability of selling a given product, at a given price over time.
The completion of this acquisition will help eBay before more structured by applying world-class technologies to build a robust and comprehensive product catalog and pricing guide. With over 900 million listings on the platform, SalesPredict has an enormous set of data to apply machine learning and predictive analysis algorithms. Zakai-Or adds that,
In partnership with eBay’s broader structured data team, we will help arm eBay sellers with more information about the value of items, ultimately helping to increase customer sales conversions.
Founded in 2012 by Yaron Zakai-Or and Kira Radinsky, SalesPredict has gained much recognition in the machine learning and AI startup scene. The company had managed to mint about $5.1 million in two rounds of funding, with participation from Yandex, AfterDox, Redline Capital, KGC Capital, among others. While the co-founder Ridinsky has also been recognized by Forbes as one of most influential Israeli women and named in “30 Under 30 in Enterprise Tech” list in 2015.
