Paribus was an American company and creator of the price tracking app of the same name, which synced with a user's email account to scan for receipts and negotiated with online companies to refund the difference if there was a price drop shortly after a purchase.

History

Paribus was founded in 2014 by Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh. The company is based in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. The name is derived from the Latin phrase ''

ceteris paribus ' (also spelled ') (Classical ) is a Latin phrase, meaning "other things equal"; some other English translations of the phrase are "all other things being equal", "other things held constant", "all else unchanged", and "all else being equal". ...

'', meaning "all others things being equal." Glyman built Paribus to simplify the process of receiving a refund following a price drop, which can be complicated to track and often go unclaimed. He and fellow

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

alumnus Atiyeh conceived of the idea and started working on the concept in the summer of 2013. After launching in beta in September 2014, the app launched publicly at TechCrunch Disrupt New York on May 5, 2015. Paribus released its

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

app on August 6, 2015, and its Android app on April 28, 2016. In October 2015, Paribus announced that it had raised $2.1 million in seed funding, following its participation in the

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

summer program and Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt NY. The funding round was led by General Catalyst Partners, and also included

Greylock Partners Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1965, with committed capital of over $3.5 billion under management. The firm focuses on early-stage companies in consumer and enterprise software. History Greylock wa ...

, Foundation Capital, Soma Capital and Mick Johnson,

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

's former director of product. In October 2016, it was announced that Paribus had been acquired by

Capital One Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company founded on July 21, 1994, and specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, with operations primarily in the ...

.Sarah Perez
"Capital One acquires online price tracker Paribus,"
TechCrunch, October 6, 2016. Since then, Paribus has continued to launch new products to help save users time and money and has reportedly found more than $20,000,000 in savings for their over 3,000,000 users. As of January 2023, Capital One discontinued the Capital One Price Protection feature of Capital One Shopping.

Software

Paribus connected to a user's email account to scan messages for receipts from

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

retailers.Lauren Zumbach
"Apps track emails, receipts to spot potential price-match refunds,"
''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

'', May 24, 2016. The app tracked the user's purchases and, if an item goes on sale shortly after the purchase, Paribus contacted customer service departments in the user's name to file a price adjustment claim and request a refund of the difference. It was also able to detect coupons or promo codes that could have been applied to a purchase, and have the coupon redeemed retroactively. The app is free. After the acquisition closed with Capital One, Paribus users began to keep 100% of the savings. It was available on the

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

iPad The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The IPad (1st generation), first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. ...

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and formerly marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a po ...

, and on Android smartphones and tablets. At its launch, the service worked with 18 major retailers, including

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...

Best Buy Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was r ...

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

, Target,

Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...

and Newegg.Zach Epstein
"New free service automatically gets you money back when items you've already bought go on sale,"

Boy Genius Report Boy Genius Report (also referred to as BGR) is a technology-influenced website and covers topics ranging from consumer gadgets to entertainment, gaming, and science. Founded in October 2006 by anonymous web personality Boy Genius (also referred t ...

, May 22, 2015. This list had grown to 29 retailers in the United States by December 2017. The company states that the average user saves between $60 and $100 per year. As of October 2016, it had over 700,000 users.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.paribus.co/ Capital One American companies established in 2014 Companies based in Brooklyn Software companies based in New York City Online companies of the United States IOS software Android (operating system) software Y Combinator companies 2016 mergers and acquisitions Defunct software companies of the United States

History

Software

See also

References

External links