Pinterest has acquired Jelly Industries, the operator of an algorithm-based Q&A service that pairs questioners with experts. Jelly was founded by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Ben Finkel, who worked with Stone at Twitter; both Stone and Finkel will join Pinterest as part of the deal.
Founded in 2013, Jelly had raised a total of $11.5 million from investors including Spark Capital, Greylock Partners and SV Angel, plus individual backers such as Al Gore and Jack Dorsey. The company was valued at roughly $76 million with an $8 million round in early 2014. Pinterest, for its part, was valued at $11 billion in 2015 and has raised north of $1.5 billion from many backers—including an angel investment from Stone.
In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Stone called the two companies a natural fit, partly because they’re both focused on improving online search functions. “Their mission was astonishingly similar to ours,” Stone wrote. “Human powered search, a subjective search engine, and discovering things you didn’t know you need to know.” It remains unclear whether Jelly will continue as an independent website or be integrated into Pinterest.
Article by PitchBook
