Apple Brings on Team From Consultant Silicon Valley Data Science

(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. hired a team from consulting firm Silicon Valley Data Science, adding experts to help the iPhone maker ramp up efforts to use data to improve its products.

Founded in 2013, the Mountain View, California-based startup provided data analysis to larger companies to improve their forecasts, operational efficiency, and customer relationships, according to the firm’s website. An Apple spokesman acknowledged a few dozen employees from Silicon Valley Data Science joined the company.

Sanjay Mathur, Silicon Valley Data Science’s founder and chief executive officer, joined Apple as part of the move. He leads "strategy and analytics initiatives for a group at Apple," according to his LinkedIn profile. About 20 data scientists from the firm joined Apple, according to their LinkedIn profiles. They’re working on analytics for ad-related initiatives, which may include optimizing App Store ads.

In December, Apple said it was buying song recognition application maker Shazam and podcast tools startup Pop Up Archive. Earlier in January, it announced the acquisition of Buddybuild, a service for App Store developers to test their applications.

--With assistance from Sarah McBride and Alex Webb

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Gurman in San Francisco at mgurman1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Andrew Pollack

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