Pinterest Acquires The Hunt & Pext To Boost Ad Tech, Commerce

Pinterest today announced the acquisition of two startups — The Hunt and Pext — that it says will boost its mobile shopping, ad tech and image indexing technologies.

The Hunt is a two-year-old mobile shopping and discovery platform that enables users to search for products they want to buy based on images they find on social networks. CEO and co-founder Tim Weingarten and some members of The Hunt’s core product team will join Pinterest to work on mobile shopping and discovery products.

Pext is a mobile app created by OMG Labs that turns text messages into memes by finding relevant images. Pext co-founder Harsh Goel will join the Pinterest monetization team, “bringing his experience in building image indexing and advertising technology, mobile apps and discovery products and backends,” Pinterest said in an release.

Pinterest didn’t release terms of the deals. Both services will be shut down; Pext is removing its app from the app stores, and The Hunt will discontinue service early next year.

“We welcome the talented teams from The Hunt and Pext to Pinterest,” Pinterest’s head of engineering, Michael Lopp, said in the release. “As some of the the best minds in mobile shopping, monetization and image indexing technologies, their contributions will be incredibly valuable as we continue to build a discovery engine that helps people plan their everyday lives.”