Dropbox picks up defunct mobile coupon service Endorse

Extending its streak of purchasing startups, Dropbox has gone ahead and picked up mobile coupon service Endorse. What’s different about this acquisition is that Endorse shut shop a month ago and Dropbox has only just pocketed it.

Endorse was a free application for mobile devices that offered cash-back on brands to shoppers when they purchased products. The service was shuttered on June 19 with immediate effect. Endorse gave its users up to June 30 to transfer Endorse cash to their bank accounts and redeem points balances.

Dropbox’s latest acquisition

The Endorse team wrote in a blog post that it was joining the Dropbox team on “exciting technical and business challenges” ahead, but did not reveal much about the future of Endorse. Even while it looks like the deal is focused on the team and not the product, TechCrunch, has reported citing sourcesthat this was an acquisition and not an acqui-hire of the company’s talent.

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Fresh out of the DBX Conference earlier this month, Endorse seems to be Dropox’s first major purchase. Dropbox made a huge transaction earlier this year in March by purchasing much-loved startup Mailbox, the email application. All 14 members of Mailbox’s team joined Dropbox to build the application over the file-sharing service’s experience. Dropbox, on its part, is providing a helping hand to Mailbox’s growth.

The file-hosting service had picked up Snapjoy, a cloud-based photo organiser and Audiogalaxy, a music streaming service, back in December last year too. Rumours have been doing the rounds that Dropbox is planning to build a cloud-based streaming service with Audiogalaxy’s acquisition, but nothing concrete has come out of them.