SARASOTA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Revcontent, the fastest growing content recommendation platform, announces the acquisition of machine learning company, Rover, for its advanced personalization and recommendation technology. A powerful testament to Revcontent’s rapid growth and visionary mindset, the acquisition of Rover is the next step in delivering personalized discovery, one recommendation at a time.
“Revcontent and Rover share a vision of a personalized web, a web that helps users discover content they love that they never knew existed,” said Revcontent CEO, John Lemp.
“We have a unique opportunity here, to do for discovery, what Google did for web search. For Vijay, me and the Rover team, this was always the holy grail and together with Revcontent, we’re about to make the future arrive sooner. After our first meeting with Chris Maynard, Richard Marques and the rest of John’s leadership team, it became instantly clear that this was a perfect fit in terms of culture, technology and vision,” added Jonathan Siddharth, CEO of Rover.
Following the acquisition, Rover will operate as Revcontent’s Silicon Valley headquarters and continue spearheading advanced machine learning initiatives. Jonathan Siddharth and Vijay Krishnan founded Rover while at graduate school at Stanford University out of the same research lab where Google was born. Rover has raised about $7 million in venture capital from prominent investors including the creator of Google Adsense, the Former Director of Performance Ads at Twitter, and the Head of Product at Dropbox. Other investors include early execs from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Pandora, and more.
“The synergy between the two companies was immediately clear to me. With the performance of Rover's machine learning technology and Revcontent's focus on the success of its publishers and advertisers, I expect the combined company to rapidly become the leader in content recommendation advertising," adds Stephen Oskoui, Rover's lead investor and a Venture Partner at Founders Fund, a top tier venture capital fund in Silicon Valley.
With Rover’s machine learning technology, Revcontent’s personalization will be 3X more granular than Facebook. The acquisition of Rover’s machine learning recommendation technology will allow Revcontent’s media partners, such as Forbes, The Atlantic, and Newsweek, to build deeper relationships with their users, learning more about their true tastes and preferences, so they can create more of the content their users enjoy. Media partners will also employ Internal Discovery powered by a user’s interest graph, recommending other content from their site that a user is most likely to be interested in. Revcontent’s brand advertisers such as The New York Times, Conde Nast, and Yahoo! can identify unique segments of users who are most likely to be interested in their content, products, and brand, helping them rapidly acquire their most valuable customers.
Rover’s technology is expected to increase recommendation engine performance substantially, resulting in increased revenue opportunities for publishers by delivering higher eCPMs and greater performance for advertisers, while helping users discover great content. Higher publisher payouts align with Revcontent’s mission of helping support quality journalism, free speech, independent thought and the spread of big ideas, all of which are crucial for democracy as a whole.
Rover founders Jonathan Siddharth and Vijay Krishnan, are joining the Revcontent team as the Senior Vice President of Technology and the Senior Vice President of Data Science, respectively. The entire Rover team will continue on with them at Revcontent. Rover’s apps which have more than 40 million registered users across all platforms, will continue to be supported as part of the company’s long term strategy to build a deeper, more direct relationship with its users.
Revcontent and Rover are excited for the future of personalized content recommendations and their potential to inspire people by sparking their curiosity. Those inspired today will move the world forward tomorrow. Bearing this simple motto in mind, media brands can spread more powerful ideas and connect the world more intimately: an interactive, personalized web of thought.
About Revcontent:
Revcontent is the world’s fastest growing content recommendation network, powering 250 billion content recommendations per month. Revcontent partners with the largest media brands in the world such as Forbes, Newsweek, The Atlantic, International Business Times, and more. Revcontent’s headquarters lies in Sarasota, Florida with global offices including London, San Diego, San Francisco, New York, and more coming soon. Revcontent reaches 92% of US households, according to Quantcast and has been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Fox News, and more.
