M&A roundup - week ending 1/16/16

Microsoft bought Event Zero; Bloomberg acquired Netbox Blue; Distil Networks purchased ScrapeSentry

Beijing Kunlun Tech, a Chinese gaming company, acquired a majority stake in Grindr, the social network dating app aimed at gay men. It bought 60 percent of the company for a reported $93million.

The deal values Grindr at $155 million. The remaining 40 percent of Grindr will continue owned by Grindremployees and Joel Simkhai, the company’s founder.  Going forward, Grindr’s founders will continue itsoperating structure and the company will also retain its current team.

Founded in 2008, the app is now in 196 countries around the world, with two million daily active users, whospend an average of 54 minutes using the app. Grindr’s revenue was about $32 million in 2014, up 29percent from $25 million in 2013.

Grindr had never before taken any outside funding, and it said it would use the $93 million to grow itsbusiness.

Enterprise software company Pivotal acquired UX Design firm Slice of Lime. No financial terms ofthe deal were disclosed. 

All 18 of Slice of Lime’s employees have joined Pivotal and will be working within the Pivotal Labsconsulting business.

Slice of Lime provides development services for marketing websites and UX/UI for web and mobileapplications.  Using research, strategy, and design, the company caters to technology startups withengaging user experiences.

The company was founded by Kevin Menzie in January 2001 and is based in Denver, Colorado.

Microsoft acquired management, reporting, and analytics technology from Event Zero, a management software provider. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

The assets will be incorporated into Microsoft's Skype for Business offering. Microsoft said it wants todeliver a complete, enterprise-grade communications solution at global scale with Office 365. 

Founded in 2005, Event Zero has raised $13.75 million in venture funding from Integral Capital Partners,Shawmut Capital Partners, Spark Ventures and Trident Capital. Event Zero will continue to service itscustomers and partners.

Kakao, a South Korean mobile messaging app, acquired amajority stake in Loen Entertainment, thecompany behind music download/streaming platform provider MelOn. It bought 76.4 percent forKRW 1.87 trillion ($1.4 billion)

To secure funds for the acquisition, Kakao will issue KRW 750 billion ($620.6 million) in new stocks to StarInvest Holdings Limited, Loen’s previous majority shareholder, and others. The rest will be covered viaKakao’s cash holdings, M&A financing and by inviting outside investments.

The acquisition is part of Kakao's continued efforts to bring innovation to the company’s mobile contentplatforms, which includes O2O, mobile gaming and mobile banking businesses.

Loen will be able to offer new type of music services leveraging Kakao’s mobile platform, includingstreaming services based on social networks, user database-driven music curation, artist centered onlinemusic creation communities, and services that intertwine with other content in Kakao’s multiple platforms.

Distil Networks, a  bot detection and mitigation company, acquired managed security services provider ScrapeSentry. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

ScrapeSentry's team of security analysts will provide Distil Networks customers with real-time threatmonitoring, analysis, investigation, and response, as well as post-incident reports. Distil's 24/7 managedsecurity service is now available to mid-market and enterprise customers and is based on each customer'sunique security policy and response plan.

Founded in 2006, ScrapeSentry was a spin-off of managed security firm Sentor. It has offices in Stockholm,Sweden, London, UK and Boston, USA.

Digital Currency Group, a a full-service, institutional trading firm focused on digital currencies,acquired CoinDesk, a bitcoin news site. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

DCG's resources and vision will enable the CoinDesk team to keep growing. In addition, DCG’s expertise inmarketing, sales and product development will enable the team to expand its current offerings,including events and premium content.

Launched in 2013, CoinDesk had raised around $2 million in funding from undisclosed investors.

Startups.co, a startup launch platform acquired Zana, an educational platform for startups. Nofinancial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Zana's platform provides free access to resources, experts, and community.

The acquisition of Zana helps drive the Startups.co vision to build a platform to help any entrepreneur launcha great idea. Startups on our platform have free access to industry luminaries such as Steve Blank, NeilPatel, Hiten Shah, Kim Malone Scott, and Matt Mullenweg. 

Visteon Corporation, a global automotive cockpit electronics supplier signed a definitive agreementto acquire AllGo Embedded Systems, a supplier of embedded multimedia andconnectivity solutions to global automotive OEMs and Tier1 customers. Terms of the deal were notdisclosed.

AllGo will become a 100% owned subsidiary of Visteon Corporation. Post-acquisition, the intention is forAllGo to continue to support their current and future Automotive OEM and Tier1 suppliers worldwide.

AllGoVision, the Video Analytics business unit of AllGo Systems, is not included in the transaction and willbe spun off to operate as an independent company.

Closing is subject to satisfaction of certain customary conditions, including Indian regulatory approval, andis expected in the first quarter of 2016. 

IMCap Partners, an investment firm, acquired Attensity Europe, a solution provider in the customerinteraction management market. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Thomas Dreikauss, CEO of Attensity Europe GmbH, will remain on board as CEO while also becoming ashareholder.

As a result of the change of ownership and the strategic repositioning of the company, Attensity Europe willbe rebranded.

The Carlyle Group,  an American multinational private equity, alternative asset management andfinancial services corporation, acquired a majority stake in TestPlant, the maker of the eggPlantrange of software quality tools. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Carlyle is investing in partnership with the existing management team, which will continue to build andsupport the test solutions that have led to the company increasing its revenues ten-fold over the past fiveyears.

Founded in 2008, TestPlant has more than 350 customers in over 40 countries across sectors includingfinancial services, aerospace and defense, TMT, retail and healthcare. It raised $2.56 million in venturefunding.

Garmin, the maker of GPS navigation and wireless devices and applications, completed itsacquisition of PulsedLight, a designer of optical distance measurement technology. No financialterms of the deal were disclosed. 

PulsedLight makes sensor boards that are highly accurate, smaller, and more lightweight, compared to mostother optical distance measurement devices. PulsedLight developed and owns the intellectual property thatenables this technology.

The PulsedLight office and its design associates will be retained by Garmin International.

Business technology firm Net@Work acquired Pixafy, a company that develops eCommerce websites. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Pixafy Services will continue to deliver Magento Enterprise B2C and B2B websites for clients, who will nowhave access to Net@Work’s technology stack. Pixafy Services will also serve as Net@Work’s Web &eCommerce arm.

Founded in 1996, Net@Work provides implementation, consulting and support across the Sage, NetSuite,Salesforce, Microsoft, and Magento product portfolios, and are experts at integrating third-party systemsacross platforms.

Grand perfecta, a provider of horse racing and data analytics, acquired Just Mobile, doing businessas FanXT, a global fantasy sports provider. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Through the acquisition Grand Perfecta will offer market-proven daily, seasonal and commissioner fantasysports platforms together with a strong, experienced team in online and mobile technologies.

Founded in 2010, FanXT had raised $330,000 in venture funding.

Freeman, a provider of brand experiences, acquired Klowd.com, an audience engagement technology developer of event-focused second screen technology. No financial terms of the dealwere disclosed. 

The acquisition will grow Freeman's digital capabilities as part of its Freeman Digital Ventures initiative.

For over a year, Freeman has served as the exclusive partner of Klowd.com’s proprietary second screentechnology, branded as FXP | touch, which is used by more than 500 companies for 3,200 meetings,driving more than 500,000 unique data points for meeting organizers.

Klowd.com was founded in 2011. 

Shelfbucks, an in-store marketing platform for retail stores and brands, finalized the acquisition of Emmoco, an Internet of Things platform for developing connected Bluetooth Smartdevices and solutions. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Under terms of the deal, Shelfbucks will acquire Emmoco's complete hardware, firmware, mobile and serversuite of intellectual property and product solutions, including Emmoco's proprietary BlueJoule softwareplatform.

Emmoco employees are joining as Shelfbucks employees and will work out of Shelfbucks headquarters inAustin, Texas.

DrFirst, a  provider of e-prescribing and secure texting solutions for healthcare providers, acquired the assets of iPrescribe.net, a mobile e-prescribing application for iOS and Android devices.No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition will allow the company to expand its footprint in e-prescribing, medication management andcare collaboration, particularly on mobile platforms.

DrFirst is in use by 330 electronic medical record systems, 1,000 hospitals and 20,000 medical practicesnationwide.

Invesco, an  investment management company, acquired Jemstep, a provider of advisor-focuseddigital solutions. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The Jemstep platform enables wealth management home offices and their advisors with a full suite oftechnology solutions that are highly flexible, customizable and easily integrated into existing systems. 

Founded in 2008, Jemstep had raised $15 million in venture funding from investors that include CaleoCapital.

Next Glass, the breakthrough company that uses science and machine learning software to accurately predict how much people will like a particular wine or beer, entered into a strategic merger with Untappd, a mobile app that allows users to socially share and explore all types of beer. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Co-Founders Tim Mather and Greg Avolawill join the Next Glass leadership team.

Untappd is used by millions of people around the world, and the merger will provide Untappd with additionalresources and technology assets to accelerate new feature development and further global distribution. Withthe merger, the joint entity will immediately become the preeminent beer software company on the market.

Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm focused on investing in software, data, and technology-enabled companies, acquired Fiverun, a mobile point of sale company. No financial terms weredisclosed.

Together with Vista’s December acquisition and merger of software leaders MarketLive and Shopatron, theaddition of Fiverun will create a unified omnichannel commerce solutions company called Kibo.

Kibo will provide on-store offerings like point of sale, dynamic payment processing, and store optimization,as well as online applications like web-based merchandising, website content management and design. Kibowill also provide integrated search functions and back-end support for warehouse management, shipping,reporting, analytics, and customer loyalty programs.

Anexinet, a systems integration and technology management firm, acquired ListenLogic, a provider of unstructured big data analytics, social intelligence, and real-time risk sensing to large enterprises. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition further enhances Anexinet's portfolio of technology services and solutions. ListenLogic’ssolutions deliver real-time market and operational intelligence derived from all forms of unstructured data andintegrate with structured data to predict business outcomes, improve business performance, and detectreputational and operational risks.

This will also expand on the digital offering set of Anexinet. The combined team will continue to offersolutions as the technology and techniques of the customer centric digital landscape expands.

Flashtalking, an independent ad server, acquired Encore Media Metrics, a provider of cross-channel, fractional attribution technology. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

A complete integration of the Encore Ensemble Attribution engine empowers advertisers to move beyondlast-touch measurement models to optimize every consumer engagement in the conversion path acrosspaid, earned and owned media.

The Encore acquisition solidifies Flashtalking's independent position outside the media buying process. Itsfully integrated campaign management platform sits squarely on the side of the advertiser, re-establishingthe ad server as the unbiased, single source of truth that arms advertisers with unified data and meaningfulmeasurement across audience engagements, formats, channels and devices.

BLUE Software, provider of brand lifecycle management software-as-a-service, acquired Viki Solutions, aprovider of online proofing and real-time collaboration software technology. No financial terms of the dealwere disclosed. 

The acquisition is part of BLUE's ongoing growth and expansion strategy. All current BLUE and Viki Solutions customers and partners can expect no disruptions as a result of this acquisition. Customers will continue to receive support from their current contacts. All current customer, partner, and OEM agreements are expected to remain unchanged.

 Stephen Kaufman will into a new Chief Product Officer role at BLUE Software. 

Bloomberg acquired the intellectual property, patents, and engineering assets of Netbox Blue, a global provider of social media risk management and compliance solutions. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Netbox Blue’s social media monitoring and governance technology will enhance Bloomberg’s enterprise compliance platform, called Bloomberg Vault). This will provide clients with next-generation price-competitive communications surveillance functionality and analytics to meet increasingly stringent regulatory guidelines, prevent market abuse, and deepen 

Existing Netbox Blue clients will remain clients of Netbox Blue, now known as CyberHound, the shares of which Bloomberg did not acquire.

eBay Enterprise Marketing Solutions, a digital marketing agency, acquired AffiliateTraction, an affiliate marketing agency. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

AffiliateTraction’s talent and technology will be available to eBay Enterprise's entire ecosystem of advertisers, agencies, and publishers.

This acquisition will help it expanding the depth and breadth of its ecosystem, and providing its clients, partners, and publishers with the advanced performance marketing tools they need to drive commerce, loyalty, and growth.

(Image source: aristocratlegalsolutions.com)