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This presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements include statements relating to our financial guidance for the second quarter of 2023 and underlying assumptions and key drivers; our “vital few” initiatives and their ability to re-accelerate growth and increase our value proposition; our product development and marketing initiatives and their ability to improve customer experiences, engagement, increase customer spend and enhance our brand perception and awareness; our ability to attract, engage, retain and grow buyers and sellers; our investment approach and its positive impact on our growth and profitability; our ability to grow market share; our ability to re-accelerate our GMS/active buyer metric; the future of search on our marketplaces; and our ability to navigate the global macroeconomic uncertainty and volatility. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “enable,” “estimate,” “expect,” “goal,” “intend,” “may,” “outlook,” “plan,” “potential,” “target,” “will,” or similar expressions and derivative forms and/or the negatives of those words.

Forward-looking statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that we expect. These risks and uncertainties include: (1) the level of demand for our services or products sold in our marketplaces and our ability to support our recent growth; (2) the importance to our success of the trustworthiness of our marketplaces and our ability to attract and retain active and engaged communities of buyers and sellers; (3) risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic; (4) the fluctuation of our quarterly operating results; (5) our failure to meet our publicly announced guidance or other expectations; (6) if we or our third-party providers are unable to protect against technology vulnerabilities, service interruptions, security breaches, or other cyber incidents; (7) our dependence on continued and unimpeded access to third-party services, platforms, and infrastructure; (8) macroeconomic events that are outside of our control; (9) operational and compliance risks related to our payments systems; (10) our ability to recruit and retain employees; (11) our ability to compete effectively; (12) our ability to enhance our current offerings and develop new offerings to respond to the changing needs of sellers and buyers; (13) our ability to demonstrate progress against our environmental, social, and governance Impact strategy; (14) our efforts to expand internationally; (15) our ability to successfully integrate and receive the expected benefits from the Depop and Elo7 acquisitions; (16) acquisitions that may prove unsuccessful or divert management attention; (17) regulation in the area of privacy and protection of user data; and (18) litigation and regulatory matters, including intellectual property claims. These and other risks and uncertainties are more fully described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the section entitled “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, and subsequent reports that we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time. It is not possible for our management to predict all risks, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements we may make. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance, achievements, or events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will occur.

Forward-looking statements represent our beliefs and assumptions only as of the date hereof. We disclaim any obligation to update forward-looking statements.

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Etsy Acquires Blackbird Technologies to Enhance Search Capabilities

September 19, 2016
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BROOKLYN, N.Y., Sept. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Etsy, Inc. (Nasdaq: ETSY), which operates marketplaces where people around the world connect, both online and offline, to make, sell and buy unique goods, today announced that it has acquired Blackbird Technologies, Inc. Privately-held, Blackbird has developed proprietary machine learning technology that delivers superior search relevance and recommendations.  

Blackbird's novel technology combines images and text using advanced Deep Learning Artificial Intelligence techniques to power a range of search capabilities, including personalized search, ranking, spelling correction and predictive typeahead, to deliver a personalized shopping experience.

"Buyers come to Etsy.com for items they can't find anywhere else and our goal is to help them discover exactly what they want among our 40 million unique listings. Leveraging Blackbird's technology, we believe we can enhance the buyer experience by making search quicker and easier and by surfacing even more relevant, tailored product recommendations," said Chad Dickerson, Etsy, Inc. CEO and Chair. "Our team has already made substantial enhancements to the search & discovery process on Etsy, especially through features like Exploratory Search, and we are excited for Blackbird's world-class team and technology to accelerate our progress in this key area."

Transaction Rationale and Benefits:

  • Blackbird has advanced technology with a proven track record of delivering high-quality search, including:
    • Machine learning that analyzes user behavior, unstructured data, and other variables to suggest relevant and personalized search recommendations;
    • Natural language processing to understand complex search queries;
    • Deep Learning-based image recognition techniques to index and catalogue photos, which help provide more relevant search results; and
    • Spelling correction and predictive typeahead to make searching faster and more intuitive.
  • Blackbird's talented employees, including its co-founders, who serve as the company's CEO and CTO, will join Etsy. The team possesses a deep expertise in Artificial Intelligence, search, and distributed systems and has direct experience working in these areas for some of the largest technology companies in the world.
  • This expansion of Etsy's technical capabilities and search sciences team is expected to accelerate our efforts to further optimize the search experience.
  • In addition, longer-term, we believe there may be opportunities to deploy Blackbird's Artificial Intelligence technology in areas beyond search that will help strengthen our markets and seller services platform.

About Etsy

Etsy operates marketplaces where millions of people around the world connect, both online and offline, to make, sell and buy unique goods. Etsy also offers a wide range of seller services and tools that help creative entrepreneurs start, grow and manage their businesses. The Etsy community includes creative entrepreneurs who sell on our platform, thoughtful consumers looking to buy unique goods in our marketplace, retailers and manufacturers who partner with Etsy sellers to help them grow their businesses and Etsy employees who maintain our platform and nurture our ecosystem. Our mission is to reimagine commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world, and we're committed to using the power of business to strengthen communities and empower people.

Etsy was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements include the quotations from management, statements regarding the rationale and proposed benefits of our acquisition of Blackbird, information related to our possible or assumed future results of operations and expenses,  business strategies and plans, business environment and future growth. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that we expect. For example, risks and uncertainties regarding our acquisition of Blackbird include the unexpected disruption of our ongoing business operations due to the acquisition, the failure to successfully integrate Blackbird's business and employees, and the failure to achieve the expected benefits of the acquisition.These risks and uncertainties are more fully described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2016. Forward-looking statements represent our beliefs and assumptions only as of the date of this press release. We disclaim any obligation to update forward-looking statements.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/etsy-acquires-blackbird-technologies-to-enhance-search-capabilities-300330359.html

SOURCE Etsy, Inc.

Investor Relations Contact: Etsy, Jennifer Beugelmans, ir@etsy.com; Media Relations Contact: Etsy, Kelly Clausen, press@etsy.com

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