SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo is acquiring social shopping site Polyvore for an undisclosed sum, a move that will strengthen the tech giant's presence in mobile ecommerce.

Announcing the deal late last Friday, Yahoo said the acquisition would accelerate its "Mavens" growth strategy as well as help to power native shopping ads that drive traffic and sales to retailers.

Yahoo's "Mavens" strategy is focused on four key areas – mobile, video, native advertising and social – and it aims to drive consumer engagement and ad sales.

Similar to Pinterest, Polyvore is a "digital corkboard" with 20m unique monthly visitors that enables users to customise clothing and accessories from retailers.

A specialist at native advertising, Polyvore sells ads to more than 350 brands and retailers, which can sponsor collections or items on the site.

"Polyvore's technology will bring a proven native ad model, new compelling native ad formats, and strong advertising relationships with more than 350 retailers to Yahoo's fast-growing native advertising platform, Yahoo Gemini," the company said.

Simon Khalaf, svp of publisher products at Yahoo, expressed confidence in what the union between the two companies could deliver.

"Polyvore has built an excellent team, a category leading product, and a strong business based on a highly engaged community," he said.

"The combination of Yahoo's industry-leading digital content with Polyvore's expertise in community and commerce has outstanding potential," he added.

Khalaf explained that the Polyvore team will join Yahoo and work out of the company's offices in Sunnyvale, San Francisco and New York, with co-founder and CEO Jess Lee reporting directly to him.

Yahoo recently announced it earned $1.24bn in the second quarter of 2015, up 15% from the previous year, with revenue from "Mavens" projects accounting for about third (32%) of the total.

Data sourced from Yahoo; additional content by Warc staff