Viber acquires makers of ecommerce keyboard ShopChat

Viber has acquired San Francisco startup Chatter Commerce, makers of the ShopChat keyboard, for an undisclosed amount.

Chatter Commerce develops ShopChat, a “mobile shopping keyboard” for ecommerce apps. Japan’s Rakuten, which owns Israeli-founded Viber, previously invested in Chatter Commerce, leading a $1.25 million round in the company earlier this year.

Viber recently launched its Instant Shopping feature in the US where users shop directly via chat. The acquisition of ShopChat will likely help grow the feature and its user base.

“We founded Chatter Commerce on the basis that people should be able to do much more in their chats than what is currently available,” said Zephrin Lasker, CEO of Chatter Commerce. “Rakuten Viber’s innovative vision extends beyond the minor details of feature optimization that most messaging apps are focused on today their objective is to dramatically expand the role messaging apps have in people’s everyday lives.”

These are all steps to making Viber a “multi-service communication platform,” said Djamel Agaoua, CEO of Viber.

“We want to bring more value to our hundreds of millions of users around the world while keeping the experience simple and seamless. Chatter Commerce’s technology will actively support our vision, and their team is a perfect fit for our culture of innovation,” he added.