An Irish startup that helps small retailers list their inventory online and secure the top search results within their geographic area has been acquired by Google.
Pointy was founded six years ago and has clients across Ireland and the US. The company builds websites for small and medium-sized stores, optimised to top search rankings. It also makes a device – which costs £699 – that links with a shop’s point of sale system, so that inventory can be uploaded by scanning barcodes, rather than by typing it in data.
The result is a prominent online store page with algorithmically estimated, real-time stock information, which also integrates with Google’s ‘See What’s In Store’ business search feature.
“Over the past several years we’ve developed a very close partnership with Google,” wrote Pointy co-founders Mark Cummins and Charles Bibby in a blog post. ”It became clear that we shared the same vision of how technology can improve local retail businesses. So today is a natural next step in our journey.”
The pair said Google’s “resources and reach” would allow Pointy roll out on a “much larger scale”.
The deal, which is expected to close in coming weeks, is reportedly worth $160m.
“One of the challenges small merchants face is getting their in-store inventory information online in a way that is easy to manage and reliably up to date,” said Google’s director of local SMB products Peter Chane.
“Since organising the world’s information is core to what we do, we’ve been working to make it easier for local merchants to better showcase their products to interested shoppers on Google,” he added.
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