@WalmartLabs, which operates as the tech brains behind the big-box retailer, has acquired Yumprint of Seattle.
Walmart plans to use the company’s recipe technology for its grocery delivery efforts on Walmart.com and Walmart To Go. Yumprint founders Wes Dyer and Chris Crittenden will join the @WalmartLabs team, and move to the lab’s headquarters in San Bruno, Calif.
Walmart said in a blog post the two founders will bring with them a vision to improve how people discover and prepare for their meals using technology. According to Yumprint’s Web site, the technology helps understand recipe semantics, matches ingredients to advertisements, understands consumer taste preferences, calculates nutritional information and prepares shopping lists from recipes.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it is in line with other small acquisitions made by @walmartlabs for both talent and technology. Other purchases include Torbit, Inkiru, OneOps and Tasty Labs. Yumprint is the first one in Amazon’s backyard.
The company’s roots may be as a physical retailer, but it also must compete against online companies, like Amazon and other start-ups that are using technology to reach consumers in new ways. Walmart’s Walmart To Go grocery delivery pilot in the Bay Area and Denver is one of Walmart’s experiments, which lets customers shop online and either get orders delivered or designate them for pick-up at participating stores for free.
Prior to Yumprint, Crittenden was a management consultant at McKinsey & Co, and Dyer was previously an engineer at Microsoft.
