eBay acquired Israeli startup The GiftsProject for an undisclosed sum, according to AllthingsD. Founded in 2009, The GiftsProject has created a social commerce application, enabling users to vote, comment and buy a gift together as a group. Back in February, the GiftsProject announced a partnership with eBay as well as $1 million seed round from Gemini and Index ventures. Seed funding was provided a year earlier by Yossi Vardi. Now The Gifts Project will become eBay’s Israel Social Center, reporting to Don Bradford, the VP of social commerce who joined eBay in May.
In a recent interview to VC Cafe, Ron Gura, co-founder and CEO of GiftsProject explained that the main value proposition to e-retailers is that his offering “makes the purchase completion rate as high as possible”. Which is possibly what eBay has in store for it’s new Israeli addition, which will be working on building social shopping platforms and product features for eBay Marketplaces.
The GiftsProject is the fourth exit coming out of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program of IDC Israel (disclaimer: I’m an alumnus of the program), following the sale of Ron’s brother’s companies Picscout and PicApp and the acquisition of Dror Ceder’s Wibiya by Conduit. Other Zell startups include Wibbitz (who announced seed funding from Roi Carthy yesterday) and Bizzabo.
More as the deal details unfold…
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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