Pinterest Looks To Expand Offering With Instapaper Acquisition

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Pinterest Looks To Expand Offering With Instapaper Acquisition by PitchBook

News hit yesterday that Instapaper, the provider of a tool for saving web pages to read later, has been acquired by Pinterest. As a result of the deal, the Instapaper team will move from New York City to join Pinterest in its San Francisco headquarters.

This acquisition is an interesting move by Pinterest, which has built its business by enabling users to save items from around the web into designated lists. Classically, Pinterest lists comprise cool products, projects, recipes, outfits and room designs, among other topics of whimsy. The company makes money through in-site advertising, allowing companies to pay to have their products displayed to Pinterest users.

Buying Instapaper signals that the company is looking to expand its offering beyond things like products and recipes and into news and entertainment, driven by article discovery. While the two services do operate in a similar manner, it’s still unclear how Pinterest will use Instapaper to bring in more revenue. Pinterest was last valued at $11 billion with a $533 million fundraise in May 2015 that saw participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners and other major VCs.

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