Walmart Innovation Wing Buys Product Data Firm Adchemy

Walmart's technology innovation division [at]WalmartLabs has acquired ad tech and product data specialist Adchemy, bringing new expertise in areas such as semantic search, data analytics and marketing to its team. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2004, Adchemy develops SaaS paid search, product ads, and mobile search technology which assesses consumer intent and maps it to current promotions. Its 'Adchemy for Keywords' solution helps clients beat their category competition in paid search on Google AdWords and Microsoft Bing Ads; while 'Adchemy for Products' helps retailers scale their Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) campaigns, allowing them to manage campaigns in their own business language, and receive predictive insights and recommendations.

According to reports in the press, CEO Murthy Nukala will not be joining @WalmartLabs, which will otherwise be taking on Adchemy's team of 60. This team includes a number of engineers; Ethan Batraski, who previously served as Head of Search Innovation at Yahoo!; and data scientist and former Yahoo! exec Esteban Arcaute (pictured), who served as Adchemy's Senior Director and Head of Research, in charge of a team made up of data scientists, research engineers and data analysts.

The news marks the retail giant's twelfth acquisition since its creation of @WalmartLabs, and one of its largest to date in terms of headcount. According to its blog, Walmart plans to use Adchemy's technologies to better target Walmart's 245 million weekly customers.

Web site: www.walmartlabs.com .