store-front-blue_129860898258472376Thanks to an acquisition, Walmart’s online store is getting smarter.

In a post Monday on the official Walmart Labs blog, the company announced the acquisition of Inkiru, a predictive analytics company based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Inkiru is the latest in a series of acquisitions by the big box retailer designed to augment its e-commerce business. According to the blog post, Walmart plans to use Inkiru’s technology to harness the big data streams the company has access to in order to improve a number of key functions including site personalization and fraud protection.

In this case, picking up Inkiru seems to be a clear play to compete with Amazon on predicting what customers will want to purchase next based on their personal history.

Whether or not Inkiru’s tech will make a big enough splash to attract customers to Walmart’s platform remains to be seen.

Previously on GeekWireWalmart versus Amazon: The next great tech battle?

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