eBay gets hyperlocal with acquisition of Where

eBay has acquired location-based advertising company Where. The deal follows eBay’s previous purchase of Milo. The acquisitions are a part of eBay’s efforts to build a mobile marketplace for local businesses.

Where operates a hyper-local ad network and a mobile app. It recently started to offer Groupon-style local deals. The app allows you to search for restaurants, entertainment, news, and more based on your location.
According to eBay, Where has 120 000 business customers and over 4 million active users. The service works on various mobile devices, such as iOS, Android, Blackberry and Palm.

Milo tracks inventory in local stores, so customers can find out where the product is available. Combined with Where the customers can find out about the best deals and even be able to get it immediately because of the real-time inventory.

eBay is really pushing into the mobile space. The company plans on integrating PayPal into Where’s mobile app so PayPal customers can access more local deals. Longer term, eBay could use Where’s platform to help drive adoption of its point-of-sale offering. eBay is rolling out its mobile app to facilitate mobile transactions and plans on having pilots out for point-of-sale by the end of 2011.

Where was previously known as uLocate. The company has received funding from Kodiak Venture Partners, GrandBanks Capital, and Venrock.

The purchase price was undisclosed. Ebay doesn’t expect it to impact the company’s 2011 guidance. The company will provide more color around the deal on its first quarter earnings call on Wednesday, April 27.

The monetization of mobile wil alsol be one of the key issues at VentureBeat Mobile Summit next week.