Yahoo! tries for a better sense of style

Yahoo! Inc. is trying to expand its digital content and advertising business by acquiring a fashion website that allow shoppers to put together sets of clothes and accessories, and then buy them.

The company announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Polyvore, a popular social shopping site. Yahoo says the acquisition will strengthen the company's digital magazines and verticals through the incorporation of community and commerce, and together Yahoo and Polyvore will power native shopping ads that drive traffic and sales to retailers. Broadly, Polyvore will accelerate Yahoo’s Mavens growth strategy (mobile, video, native, social) through its strong offerings in social, native, and mobile.

“Polyvore has built an excellent team, a category leading product, and a strong business based on a highly engaged community,” said Simon Khalaf, Yahoo’s SVP of Publisher Products. “The combination of Yahoo’s industry-leading digital content with Polyvore’s expertise in community and commerce has outstanding potential. We are thrilled to have the Polyvore team join us.”

On Polyvore, users put together sets of clothing, accessories and lifestyle goods that express their love for style and shopping in a compelling, digital, social setting. In addition to natural integrations with Yahoo Style and Yahoo Beauty, Polyvore’s strong media experience, where community-powered content is curated and actionable for shoppers, will enhance the full portfolio of Yahoo’s digital magazines and verticals. When it comes to advertising, Polyvore’s technology will bring a proven native ad model, new compelling native ad formats, and strong advertising relationships with more than 350 retailers to Yahoo’s fast-growing native advertising platform, Yahoo Gemini.

“I’m delighted to join Yahoo. Our core mission of empowering people to feel good about their style will remain the same, but with Yahoo’s help we’ll be able to make Polyvore even bigger and better for our user community,” said Jess Lee, Co-Founder and CEO, Polyvore. “I’m also excited that we’ll be able to deliver more scale to our advertisers by integrating our ad offerings into Yahoo Gemini.”