Google Buys Daily Deal Aggregator Dealmap

Google Inc. acquired Dealmap, a start-up company that aggregates hundreds of discounts from daily deal sites -- a market now dominated by sites like Groupon and LivingSocial.

Dealmap, based in Menlo Park, California, confirmed the deal on its blog on Monday.

"We believe Google provides the ideal platform to help us accelerate our growth and fulfill our mission. We're passionate about helping people save money while having great local experiences, and in Google we've found the perfect partner that shares this passion, as well as our vision and strategy," Dealmap said in a statement on its Web site.

Since its launch in May 2010, Dealmap has gained about two million users for its Web, mobile, social and e-mail products.

Google's acquisition comes just over two months after the release of Google Offers, the search-engine company's answer to leading daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial. Google Offers is available in Portland, San Francisco and New York.

Back in January, Google failed to buy Groupon for $6 billion. Groupon is the largest company in the industry, followed by LivingSocial.

"We are impressed with what The Dealmap team has accomplished and excited to welcome them to Google," Google told PC World on Tuesday.

Until further notice, Dealmap users will still be able to access services through its Web site.

Terms of the deal between Google and Dealmap weren't revealed.

About Dealmap:

The site offers more than 400,000 local and daily deals per day.

Dealmap reached 2 million users in less than a year (April 2011).

DealExchange -- which allows publishers and developers to promote local deals -- was launched in Dec. 2010, and to date, has attracted 85 million monthly visitors to the site.

Dealmap has worked with more than 50 commercial distributors, including T-Mobile, Savings.com and Microsoft's Bing.