Pinterest acquires product recommendation startup Kosei

Kosei, a California-based startup that specializes in using machine learning to help recommend products, has been acquired by Pinterest for an undisclosed amount. This will help Pinterest to connect its users with products, and in turn, with the companies that will be paying the website for advertising and analytics. 

Pinterest announced Wednesday that it has acquired Kosei, a Palo Alto, California-based startup that focuses on machine learning for product recommendations. It’s a smart buy for Pinterest because the company’s path to profitability depends on its ability to connect users, products, and the companies or people selling them. Here’s how Pinterest explains the acquisition in a blog post: “Over the past year, Kosei has been building a unique technology stack that drives commerce by making highly personalized and powerful product recommendations, as well as creating a system that contains more than 400 million relationships between products. As we build a discovery engine for all objects, Kosei is a perfect fit for our team.”