Adku

Adku was a big-data e-commerce personalization startup founded around 2010 by former Googlers (CEO Ajit Varma with co-founders Carlos Whitt and Jesse Shieh), and an AngelPad alumnus. It built machine-learning technology to personalize the online shopping experience for visitors to e-commerce sites such as eBay, Amazon, and Zappos. Backed by Battery Ventures, Greylock Partners, and True Ventures (roughly $1.49M raised), Adku was acquired by Groupon in February 2012 and is no longer an operating, independent company. It has no public developer portal, API, or documentation surface; this record is retained in the API Evangelist network as a Battery Ventures portfolio lead for historical/enrichment tracking only.

Adku is profiled on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Company, E-Commerce, Personalization, Machine Learning, and Big Data.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

6.8/100 minimal ▬ flat Agent 0/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.5

0 APIs

CompanyE-CommercePersonalizationMachine LearningBig DataAdvertisingAcquiredBattery Ventures Portfolio

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.5

Composite quality — 6.8/100 · minimal

Contract Quality 0.0 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 0.0 / 20

Commercial Clarity 0.0 / 20

Operational Transparency 0.0 / 13

Governance 0.0 / 12

Discoverability 6.8 / 10

Agent readiness — 0/100 · human only

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 15

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

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Source (apis.yml)

aid: adku
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source: []
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/adku.png
name: Adku
description: Adku was a big-data e-commerce personalization startup founded around 2010 by former Googlers (CEO Ajit Varma
  with co-founders Carlos Whitt and Jesse Shieh), and an AngelPad alumnus. It built machine-learning technology to personalize
  the online shopping experience for visitors to e-commerce sites such as eBay, Amazon, and Zappos. Backed by Battery Ventures,
  Greylock Partners, and True Ventures (roughly $1.49M raised), Adku was acquired by Groupon in February 2012 and is no longer
  an operating, independent company. It has no public developer portal, API, or documentation surface; this record is retained
  in the API Evangelist network as a Battery Ventures portfolio lead for historical/enrichment tracking only.
x-status: acquired
x-acquired-by: groupon
x-acquired-date: '2012-02-06'
x-enrichment-note: Defunct/acquired company (Groupon, 2012). Domain adku.com does not resolve; no live website, API, OpenAPI,
  docs, or well-known surface exists. No provider artifacts could be produced without fabrication. Identity enriched from
  public records only.
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/adku/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
x-type: company
x-source: vc-portfolio
x-backed-by:
- battery-ventures
x-tier: stub
x-tier-reason: portfolio-lead
specificationVersion: '0.20'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-17'
tags:
- Company
- E-Commerce
- Personalization
- Machine Learning
- Big Data
- Advertising
- Acquired
- Battery Ventures Portfolio
apis: []
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-07-19'
  status: backfilled
  pass: local-v1
  note: backfilled from .gitignore signal + verified work evidence