Ziibra co-founders
Ziibra co-founders Omri Mor and Justin Myers. Photo via Ziibra.

Tagboard is making an acquisition to leverage its social media aggregation technology for online commerce.

The Redmond-based company today announced that it acquired ZIIBRA, a Seattle-based startup that provides a full service e-commerce platform for online retailers.

ZIIBRA, which graduated from Techstars Seattle this past fall, will help Tagboard support social e-commerce integrations. Founded in 2011, Tagboard capitalizes on the usage of hashtags in social media. Its hashtag aggregation software is utilized by clients like Microsoft, Adidas, Nordstrom, and others.

With this deal, Tagboard plans to not only identify and organize online chatter around a specific topic, but also surface potential offers to social media users via e-commerce channels.

Photo via Tagboard.
Photo via Tagboard.

Tagboard CEO Josh Decker noted that his company is already working on social media e-commerce integrations with the Seattle Seahawks.

“A high-level description would be that we’re working to develop a seamless relationship between online commerce and social media,” Decker noted.

tagboardAdded angel investor Rudy Gadre, who backs both companies: “Tagboard has proven to be a market leader in social media embeds and displays,” he said in a statement. “With a client list that includes so many major retailers, investing into this area makes a whole lot of sense.”

The combination is not a new idea, with a handful of social commerce platforms like Chirpify trying to make it easier for social media users to make purchases within their streams. Twitter itself has tested features to let people buy products directly from their tweet stream; the company also has four e-commerce platform partners in Bigcommerce, Demandware, Shopify, and Stripe.

Ziibra’s co-founders, Omri Mor and Justin Myers, will join Tagboard, as will other Ziibra employees. We’ve followed up with Mor and Myers to learn more about why they decided to ink this deal, and will update this story when we hear back.

Update: Mor called the acquisition a “great decision,” adding that “we’re excited to take our technology and knowledge in the commerce space and now apply it to social media. And we’re happy to work with such great new customers — such as the Seahawks — to explore out the initial phase.”

This is Tagboard’s second acquisition — in August 2014, it acquired Jenni Hogan’s TVinteract app and brought Hogan on as an executive. The company, which employs 50 across six offices worldwide, has raised $4 million to date. Decker said he expects to hire another 50 people over the next year.

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