Yahoo's Marissa Mayer makes her first acquisition

Yahoo has acquired its first startup: Stamped, a recommendations engine built by former Google colleagues of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer -- a team Mayer wanted to bring into the fold at Yahoo.

Stamped, which launched as a smartphone app last November, lets users recommend books, movies, restaurants, and other things to friends by giving them a virtual stamp of approval. It uses a Twitter-like social graph that lets users follow recommendations from both friends and celebrities, like chef Mario Batali.

The company had raised about $3 million from a range of investors including Bain Capital Ventures, Google Ventures, and singer Justin Bieber, according to Crunchbase.

Mashable, which first reported on the acquisition, said Mayer acquired Stamped only for its talent, a nine-person team that includes five ex-Googlers.

"Robby, Kevin, Paul, Bart, and the entire Stamped team are a natural fit for us," Adam Cahan, Yahoo's senior vice president of emerging products and technology, said in an announcement on the corporate blog. "Their experience building fun, useful, personalized mobile products aligns well with Yahoo's vision to create the best everyday mobile experience for our users. They will be a great asset as we expand Yahoo's mobile efforts and build a world-class mobile development organization."

The Stamped app itself will be discontinued, a Yahoo representative said.