Snapchat's parent company Snap Inc has acquired Placed -- a Seattle-based start-up that operates a consumer location analytics platform -- for nearly $200 million.
According to a report in GeekWire on Tuesday, the deal is one of Snap's most expensive acquisitions.
"Over the past 12 months, Placed has measured more than $500 million in media spend to store visits, across thousands of campaigns and hundreds of partners, cementing Placed as the leader in location-based attribution," David Shim, CEO and co-founder of Placed wrote in a blog post.
He said that by partnering with Snap, the company "will do even more".
Snap operates the popular Snapchat app, which counts 166 million daily users that use the app more than 18 times per day.
The tech giant has acquired more than 10 startups since it was established. Most recently, it bought Los Angeles-based small drone manufacturer Ctrl Me Robotics for nearly $1 million.
Founded by Simon Saito Nielsen in 2013, the company provides aerial footage capture tools to movie studios, using third-party drone and custom-built solutions.
In August 2016, it paid more than $110 million to acquire mobile search app Vurb.
With this acquisition, Snapchat can help users organize a night out with friends or get a digest of the day’s news. As part of the deal -- 75 percent stock, 25 percent cash -- Snapchat has also offered $75 million in retention bonuses to keep Vurb founder and CEO Bobby Lo in the company.
It seems like Snapchat is on an aggressive expansion spree. According to Shane Wey, CEO of mobile intelligence service MightySignal, Snapchat has recently added PayPal software development kit (SDK) to both its iOS and Android apps.
This could signal towards the fact that Snapchat may soon enable purchases on its app. This could include purchase of its Spectacles in its app. It could also be for a new ad format that enables instant purchase.
(With inputs from IANS)