M&A roundup - week ending 10/3/15

Google bought Jibe Mobile; Axel Spring acquired Business Insider; Microsoft made three purchases

German publishing giant Axel Springer purchased a majority stake in  digital business news website Business Insider.

The deal valued Business Insider at $442 million. As a previous investor, Axel Springer already owned a 9 percent stake and, It purchased an additional 88 percent, for $343 million, giving it 97 percent ownership. The other three percent of the company will be continue to be owned by Bezos Expeditions.

Co-founder Henry Blodget, who is Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief of the site, and Julie Hansen, who is Chief Operating Officer and President, will continue to lead Business Insider in their respective roles.

Business Insider, which was founded in 2007, raised $55.6 million in funding from Kenneth Lerer, Marc Andreessen, RRE Ventures, Allen & Company, Institutional Venture Partners, and Kohlberg Ventures.

Google acquired Jibe Mobile, a messaging startup that builds cloud communications for mobile operators. No financial terms of the acquisition were disclosed.

Founded in 2007, Jibe Mobile is a company that allows carriers to deliver rich IP-based communications services, including high quality video calling, group chat and large media-file sharing to any network, device, or region.

The company will help with Google's new initiative to move away from SMS and toward Rich Communications Services (RCS). 

Jibe had raised $9.1 million in venture funding from Vodafone Ventures and MTI.

Internet analytics company comScore acquired movie and TV viewership tracker Rentrak. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The two companies will be merging. Rentrak’s footprint of video on demand usage combined with more than 100 million televisions and devices will be unified with comScore’s digital assets to deliver national and local coverage at scale. Together they will create a cross-platform measurement currency that accounts for all the ways in which content is consumed.

Rentrak was a publically traded company that had its IPO back in 1988.

Medical technology company Medtronic acquired Lazarus Effect, a medical device company focused on acute ischemic stroke products that facilitate the capture and removal of clots. The deal was an all-cash transaction of $100 million at closing.

Lazarus's technology will complement to Medtronic's Solitaire stent retriever platform. This technology is designed to address clinical needs with a novel nitinol "mesh cover" that folds over a stent retriever device during clot retrieval and "candy wraps" the stent with the clot inside.

Lazarus Effect had raised $5 million in venture funding.

Cloud service desk software provider Freshdesk acquired Frilp, a small startup with an app that lets users seek and receive expert help from friends. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

All 19 employees of Frilp have joined Freshdesk’s development center in Chennai. The beta Frilp app for Android will shut down soon.

Freshdesk plans to incorporate Frilp’s technologie by routing each customer service inquiry to the agent who knows the most about the customer’s area of concern. It will also look for knowledgeable people hanging out in customer forums and communities and connect them with customers who bring in new inquiries.

Freshdesk will connect customers who have service desk inquiries with their friends on social networks who might be able to solve their problems.

Frilp started in 2012, Frilp  raised $500,000 in funding from angel investors, including Girish Mathrubootham and Deva Kannan.

Microsoft acquired Havok, a provider of 3D physics, from Intel. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Microsoft will continue to license Havok’s development tools to partners. Havok will be addied to Microsoft’s existing tools and platform components for developers, including DirectX 12, Visual Studio and Microsoft Azure.

Havok was founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1998.

Microsoft also acquired key product and technology assets of Adxstudio a provider of Web portals, online engagement solutions and application lifecycle management solutions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Adxstudio's Web portals will allow customers to connect and extend their key sales and customer services business processes online. Adxstudio portals can also be used along with Microsoft's Parature Service.

Adxstudio started in 1998. It has more than 50 employees and offices in Saskatchewan, Canada, and Redmond, Washington.

Microsoft's third acquisition this week was of numerous apps from Sensei Project Solutions and Projectum ApS for Project Online. No financial terms were disclosed.

From Sensei Project Solutions it bought the Sensei Task Master, Sensei Project Dashboard, and Sensei Portfolio Dashboard apps. 

From Projectum ApS it bought Project Financials and Project Snapshot add-ins for Microsoft Project Online 

Tyler Technologies, a provider of public sector software solutions, acquired New World Systems Corporation, a provider of public safety and financial solutions for local governments. The deal is worth $670 million in cash and stock.

Under the terms of the agreement, Tyler will acquire all of the equity in New World Systems for $360 million in cash and approximately 2.1 million shares of Tyler's common stock.

Tyler plans to integrate its Odyssey courts and justice solution with New World Systems' Aegis public safety platform to create an end-to-end enterprise criminal justice solution.

Founded in 1981, New World Systems has more than 2,000 public sector customers and more than 470 employees. 

Consulting company Mercer, a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan acquired Comptryx, a global pay and workforce metrics business. No financiak terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition builds upon Mercer’s consulting strength and capabilities in talent management and reinforces its standing in the high tech industry worldwide.

Comptryx’s product suite includes three modules and will be offered under the Mercer Comptryx brand.

Workforce Metrics for on-demand analytics and peer benchmarking; Labor Cost Modeling, to design virtual organizations and compare total employment cost in countries/regions/cities around the world; and Global Salary Survey, for all employee levels for over 250 functions in more than 100 countries in the technology sector.

Apple acquired VocalIQ, a U.K.-based artificial intelligence company that is developing a more natural, human way for machines and people to communicate. No financial terms were disclosed. 

VocalIQ technology will likely be used to enhance the Siri virtual assistant, giving it better voice command controls.

Formed in March 2011, VocalIQ had raised a $1.28 million seed round from Amadeus Capital Partners and Cambridge Enterprise. 

IBM acquired Meteorix, a Workday services partner. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Founded in 2011, Meteorix offers consulting, deployment, integrations and on-going post production services for Workday Financial Management and Human Capital Management (HCM) applications. Its clients include Extra Space Storage, Lewis & Clark College, CustomInk, Mountain America Credit Union, City Year, and Champlain College. 

The acquisition will help IBM customers gain new competitive advantage by aligning people with financial performance and redefine work with the speed and simplicity of cloud-delivered finance and HR services.

Genpact, the company behind the Lean DigitalSM enterprise, acquired Endeavour Software Technologies, a mobile digital solutions provider focused on the middle and back office. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition of Endeavour will add to Genpact's Digital capabilities in mobile consulting, architecture and design, implementation, and testing.

 Closing is subject to satisfaction of certain customary conditions, including Indian regulatory approval, and is expected in the fourth quarter of 2015

Rudolph Technologies, the developer of metrology systems used in semiconductor device manufacturing purchased Stella Alliance, a semiconductor inspection technology intellectual property portfolio company. No Financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

With this acquisition, Rudolph expects to add a next-generation, high-resolution inspection system to its portfolio of solutions in the second quarter of 2016.

Additionally, the acquired technology is able to handle large rectangular substrates, extending Rudolph’s inspection portfolio footprint into growing unserved segments of microelectronic device manufacturing.

UXC Eclipse, a business consulting and technology solutions firm, acquired the Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Business Intelligence divisions of Koorb Consulting, a New Zealand-based consulting firm and Microsoft gold partner. No financial terms were disclosed.

Under the deal, UXC Eclipse will integrate the Koorb Dynamics AX and BI professional services teams within its existing New Zealand professional services infrastructure and Koorb and UXC Eclipse will continue to work collaboratively in the local market with a preferred partner relationship.

With completion of the UXC transaction, Koorb will then focus on its Microsoft CRM and SharePoint business streams. 

Apartment rental and travel company Airbnb acquired Lapka, a Russian design studio that made devices for " self-care and mind harmony." No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.  

Its products included a breathalyzer called BAM; and the PEM which is  a devices that measured radiation, electromagnetic fields, humidity and how organic your produce is.

The company said it had over 100,000 measurements from over 76 countries, but it will be discontinuing operations. Lapka will not be manufacturing or developing any new products going forward. However, it will still be providing full support for its existing customers.

Verndale, a marketing technology agency, acquired Dustland, a digital agency based in Los Angeles. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Dustland and its employees are now part of Verndale and will continue to operate from its Los Angeles office. Minh Le, CEO of Dustland, will join Verndale’s leadership team as a managing partner running the west coast operations. With the acquisition, Verndale will increase its headcount by 20 percent, making it one of the largest independent marketing technology agencies in the U.S., with almost 200 full-time employees in six offices across the country and two internationally.

Verndale also will expand its capabilities and service offerings, deepening its ability to design, implement and manage virtually any branded customer experience on any channel, device or technology platform. 

Sterlite Technologies, a  power and telecom products manufacturer, entered into a definitive agreement for the acquisition of Elitecore Technologies, a global telecom software product company. The price approximately Rs180cr in an all-cash deal.

Elitecore is provider of Operations Support Services / Business Support Services and is majority owned by First Carlyle Ventures Mauritius, whose affiliate is advised by The Carlyle Group.

This acquisition widens Sterlite’s telecom portfolio of offerings to its global customers – in addition to its current offerings comprising optical products and allied system integration services, Sterlite will now offer industry leading software solutions for operations support, business support and revenue management.

Elitecore had raised $10.3 million in ventue funding. 

Infogain Corporation, a global business and IT consulting leader, agreed to acquire the IT operations from digital transformation consulting and services company Blue Star Infotech . No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition will expand Infogain's digital transformation offerings, particularly in the areas of Cloud, mobility, SAP and analytics; adding specialized capabilities in the travel/hospitality, high-tech and healthcare verticals. In addition, the acquisition will strengthen and enhance the leadership position of Infogain in the areas of product engineering and test automation.

Kapil Nanda, President and Chief Executive Officer of Infogain, will continue in this role. Sunil Bhatia will join Infogain's management team as its CEO designate, and will assume his new responsibilities as CEO of the combined entity on July 1, 2016. At that time, Nanda will transition to his role as full-time Executive Chairman.

The combined entity will have revenue of over $150 million, close to 4,000 employees and eight delivery locations globally. 

(Image source: wcfcourier.com)