After acquiring Instagram Facebook will acquire privately held Tagtile, a customer loyalty mobile application founded by VMware engineer Abheek Anand and one-time Google engineer Soham Mazumdar.
Facebook, which is preparing for an initial public offering, said it will acquire substantially all of the assets of the San Francisco startup and Tagtile founders will join the social networking company, Bloomberg News reported. The financial terms were not disclosed.
The entrepreneurs created a system that lets customers use iPhones or Android-powered smartphones to check in at shops and get rewarded with discounts, coupons or loyalty points.
To check in, customers need only to tap smartphones on small white cubes that swap information with handsets using sensors.
“We started Tagtile with a simple goal — to help local business owners build better relationships with their best customers,” the founders said in a post at the company’s website.
“We are happy to announce that we are joining Facebook,” they continued. “It is an opportunity for us to take our goal and do it on a much bigger scale than we could have on our own.”
Facebook has been building its mobile services and capabilities as lifestyles increasingly revolved around smartphones and tablet computers.
More than 10 million Instagram applications tuned to Apple or Android-powered gadgets have been downloaded since the acquisition by Facebook was announced on Monday, raising the total number of users to about 40 million.