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Wal-Mart Inks Deal For Social Media Company

Brisbane, Calif. – Indicating the importance of social media
when it comes to shopping Wal-Mart Stores announced it has signed a definitive
agreement to acquire Kosmix, a social media company based in Mountain View,
Calif.

The amount of the sale was undisclosed but Wal-Mart reported
it is subject to customary closing conditions and it anticipates it will close
during the first half of this year.

Kosmix has developed a social media technology platform that
filters and organizes content in social networks to connect people with
real-time information that matters to them.

Kosmix was founded by

Venky
Harinarayan

and

Anand Rajaraman

, early pioneers of online
shopping, whose first company, Junglee, was acquired by Amazon.com in 1998.

The founders and the Kosmix team will operate as part of the
newly formed @WalmartLabs and continue to be based in Silicon Valley. Walmart
plans to expand the @WalmartLabs team and expects this new group will create
technologies and businesses around social and mobile commerce that will support
Walmart’s global multi-channel strategy, which integrates the shopping
experience between bricks and mortar stores and e-commerce.

Kosmix’s innovative technology platform searches and
analyzes connections in real-time data streams to deliver highly personalized
insights to users. The platform powers TweetBeat, a real-time social media
filter for live events with more than five million visits last month;
Kosmix.com, a site to discover social content by topic; and RightHealth, one of
the top three health and medical information sites by global reach.

“We are expanding our capabilities in today’s rapidly
growing social commerce environment,” said Eduardo Castro-Wright,
Walmart’s vice chairman. “Social networking and mobile applications are
increasingly becoming a part of our customers’ day-to-day lives globally,
influencing how they think about shopping, both online and in retail stores. We
are excited to have the Kosmix team join us to accelerate the development of
our social and mobile commerce offerings.”

“The world of social media is exploding and for
millions of consumers their social connections matter hugely in their daily
lives,” said Anand Rajaraman, co-founder of Kosmix. “Our work has
focused on developing a social genome platform that captures the connections
between people, places, topics, products and events as expressed through social
media — be it a feed, a tweet or a post. We are thrilled to join one of the
world’s largest companies and combine our work with Walmart’s vast online and
offline retail businesses.”

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