Yahoo Acquires Mobile Marketing Startup Sparq

Mobile marketing company Sparq announced on its site today that it has been acquired by Yahoo. The company did not disclose the purchase price.

Yahoo declined to illustrate the deal’s financial details. Sparq’s team will be joining Yahoo’s Sunnyvale campus.

Before it was acquired, Sparq raised a total of $1.7 million over several small rounds, most recently picking up more than $650,000 last year.

According to a Yahoo spokesperson, the company’s technology helped users “jump from app to app to discover, consume and engage with content.” Or, put more simply, it helped users take in more total mobile content.

The fit with Yahoo is quite plain: Yahoo needs to monetize its mobile user base if it wants its mobile-first strategy to drive lacking revenue growth. Picking up a firm that specializes in that space is reasonable.

And, given how little the company raised, it was likely a cheap pick-up for Yahoo.

Given Sparq’s focus on inter-app movement, Yahoo might be able to deploy its technology to help its users move between its own stable of applications. It isn’t clear if the company’s assets will be used in that fashion. However, if Yahoo could lash its apps together in a more cohesive fashion, it could bolster its engagement per user, and presumably its revenue per user. For a company that is forcing Wall Street to remain patient in the face of its slipping top line, such increases would be welcome indeed.

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