Groupon Buys Pelago

Daily deals site Groupon has acquired Pelago, the venture-backed creator of the location-based application Whrrl, the companies announced on their respective blogs. Financial terms of the deal were not released. Pelago’s Whrrl service will be retired at the end of April, the companies said. Pelago was reportedly backed by more than $20 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, T-Venture, Trilogy Equity Partners, Bezos Expeditions, DAG, and Reliance Technology Ventures.

PRESS RELEASE
Here’s a great way to start the week… We’re excited to announce that the minds at Pelago (creators of Whrrl) have officially joined the Groupon family.

We’ve always liked CEO Jeff Holden, the Whrrl team and the technology they’ve developed. Their obsession with real-world serendipitous discovery, or “Anti-Search,” is core to Groupon’s mission. It’s about discovering what you didn’t know you didn’t know, right in your own backyard. Jeff intimately gets consumer buying behavior and the importance of a great user experience, and his team is this awesome combination of data-driven creatives…the people who create smart products that are really fun to use.

With Jeff overseeing Groupon product development and many Pelago people taking integral roles in future Grouponnovations, Whrrl will be retiring on April 30, 2011. You can read more about that on Pelago’s blog, here.

So here’s a warm welcome to Jeff and the team!