Online fashion e-tailer Myntra has acquired Bengaluru-based mobile application development platform Native5, a move that goes with its strategy to shift entirely to the mobile platform.
Native5, founded by technology professionals Manish Priyadarshi, Barada Sahu and Shamik Datta in 2011, has developed a cloud platform to create and distribute mobile apps across smart phones, tablets and desktops. Sources told TOI that it’s an acqui-hire; in other words, Myntra is acquiring Native5 for its talent, and not so much its product. The size of the deal could not be ascertained. All three co-founders will be absorbed into the Flipkart technology team. Flipkart acquired Myntra for $330 million in May last year.
Myntra did not directly respond to a question on the Native5 acquisition, but Pooja Gupta, VP, human resource at Myntra, said: “We are always on the look-out to acquire companies that can add value to our business – however, we are very particular that the entity/business being considered makes not just business sense but ties in with our culture and value proposition.”
Native5 was incubated at Microsoft Accelerator in 2013 and it was a part of the Nasscom 10,000 Startup programme the same year. The venture was one of the finalists of Qualcomm’s QPrize in 2012. iSpirt, the software products think-tank, is said to have facilitated the deal. Sanat Rao, partner M&A in iSpirt, declined to comment.
Previously, in 2012, Myntra acquired Exclusively, which had a private label brand, and in 2013, it acquired Fitiquette that developed an in-store dressing room experience akin to a virtual fitting room for shoppers to try-on clothes online.
