Snapchat is reportedly buying a search app for over $100 million

Snapchat is reportedly buying a search app for over $100 million ,

Snapchat is reportedly finalizing an acquisition of Vurb, a search app for smartphones, for well over $100 million in stock and cash, according to The Information. Exactly what Snapchat plans to do with the five-year-old startup isn't clear; Vurb markets its app as a convenient tool for searching, discovering trending topics, and carrying out tasks like making reservations and hailing Uber / Lyft without hopping between several different apps. Here's a writeup The Next Web did on the service last year.

But it never really found much success on the App Store or Google Play. Snapchat might want to repurpose the company's technology either for integration within messages or for potential future features like discovery / recommendations. The $110 million acquisition offer consists of 75 percent stock and 25 percent cash. Snapchat is also covering "additional team retention payouts totaling nearly as much" according to The Information's report.

This is the second big purchase for Snapchat in 2016; earlier this year, Snapchat snatched up the company behind Bitmoji for around $100 million. The personalized Bitmoji stickers have already been introduced in Snapchat. Snapchat's popular face "lenses" are also the product of a smart buyout; the company purchased Ukranian startup Looksery for $150 million last year, which led to the massively popular (and occasionally controversial) feature.