Groupon, an established leader in the daily deals market has acquired Hyperpublic,a two-year-old location-based startup. Hyperpublic is an open database of people, places, and things tied to a specific location. Anyone can add objects to the database and developers will be able to build applications on top of the data.
“It’s a great outcome for everybody,” Hyperpublic Chief Executive and co-founder Jordan Cooper said in an interview Friday. “We built our relationship with Groupon over a number of months, and it just continued to strengthen.”
Hyperpublic now won’t provide technology to sites outside of Groupon, Cooper said. “Select” members of his 10-person team will join Groupon as employees, he said.
Hyperpublic says Groupon is interested in its technology, not just its talent. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but CEO Jordan Cooper describes it as a “huge win for our team and our investors”. Foursquare allows users to leave location-based tips at venue they visit whilst Hyperpublic lets users tag people, places and things to specific locations in its open database.
Hyperpublic also stated on its website:”We set out to change the way people interacted with the local environment, and are pumped to continue that mission as a part of one of the fastest growing and most disruptive companies in the world.”
The startup was founded in 2010 by Cooper and Doug Petkanics,
