Groupon Acquires Boomerang To Enhance Freebie Offers

Groupon GRPN, the world's most popular daily deals site, has acquired Boomerang.

Designed for users who want to send free or paid gifts, Boomerang (located at rang.com) launched last year with a $1 million investment from Lightbank.

Lightbank is the investment vehicle from Groupon co-founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky. The company has invested in a number of new and growing firms over the past few years, including Benzinga.

Boomerang encouraged new users to sign up by offering three free gifts to those who sign in with Facebook. The gifts include $5 credits toward retailers like Target and Hallmark, as well as $20 gift cards to ScoreBig and GlassesUSA.

The acquisition was first reported by The Next Web, but Boomerang has confirmed the buyout on its website.

"We are excited to announce that Boomerang (rang.com) has been acquired by Groupon, a global leader in local commerce," Zachary Smith, Boomerang's co-founder and CEO, wrote on the company's official blog. "We're bringing our love of free offers to Groupon Freebies, a new Groupon feature that connects you with the best coupons, promo codes, and exclusive free offers from your favorite brands."

Related: Groupon Adds Freebies Category

Smith confirmed the report claiming that the existing Boomerang platform would be shut down on December 31, 2013. While this may be disappointing to those who liked Boomerang in its current form, Smith said that he was "grateful to the millions of people who used Boomerang to give and receive gifts and rewards."

Users are being told to record the redemption instructions of any gifts they have received that haven't expired yet. They must do so before the site disappears on January 1, 2014.

Boomerang is one of many startups that Groupon has acquired to improve the company.

In September, Groupon announced that it had purchased Blink, a last-minute travel app available in eight European countries.

Groupon also acquired SideTour to boost its local activities business.

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.

Louis Bedigian is the Senior Tech Analyst and Features Writer of Benzinga. You can reach him at louis(at)benzingapro(dot)com. Follow him @LouisBedigianBZ