July 23, 2014

Twitter announces acquisition of CardSpring

Twitter has recently announced another acquisition. According to an article in Tech Crunch, the social media site has purchased CardSpring, a company that creates apps for payment cards, to enable ecommerce through coupons and other services like loyalty cards. It works by making it easier for developers to create these offers.

CardSpring's services allow developers to "link digital applications to credit or debit cards," according to a description on the company's website. An acquisition may present an opportunity for the company being acquired to expand its technologies, as it will be increasing its resources by joining forces with a larger business. 

"When we started talking with the Twitter commerce team, we quickly realized our philosophies were perfectly aligned, and by joining them, we'd be able to significantly accelerate our vision," said CardSpring on its website.

For Twitter, this acquisition strategy could help the company provide increased value to its service by offering customers the opportunity to easily take advantage of deals as they use the site. This way, Twitter looks to possibly delve deeper into the ecommerce landscape. 

A Bloomberg article details that Facebook is also looking to make ecommerce accessible through its network and the company is testing a "buy" button to allow users make purchases. With the acquisition of CardSpring, Twitter looks to position itself to be a stronger competitor in the marketplace. 

It has been discussed previously on this blog that as ecommerce continues to grow, mobile is playing an important role as customers use their mobile devices to socialize on sites like Twitter and Facebook. The integration of ecommerce features could potentially help these companies generate additional revenue.

Companies seeking to develop an acquisition strategy can consult an M&A advisor for expert advice.