M&A roundup - week ending 4/16/16

Delivery.com acquired BrewDrop; Airbnb bought ChangeCoin; Logitech purchased Jaybird

Delivery.com acquired on-demand alcohol delivery company BrewDrop. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

The app BrewDrop app will shut down once the acquisition closes. 

As part of the deal, BrewDrop Co-Founder Andrew Bell will join delivery.com as Director of Market Development. His job will be to start expanding alcohol delivery to other parts of Texas, including Dallas and Houston. Bell is the only member of the BrewDrop team that will be making the transition to the new company.

Delivery.com expects its alcohol-ordering customer base to increase by 10 percent right off the bat.

OpenGov, which allows local governments to bring their data to the cloud, acquired Ontodia, a provider of Open Data and performance management solutions. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

All Ontodia employees, including Joel Natividad and Sami Baig, the company's co-founders, are joining OpenGov and will work in OpenGov's New York office. Natividad, who had been CEO of Ontodia, is now Director of Open Data at OpenGov. The team will continue to work on making CKAN enterprise-ready and building key open data and performance management capabilities for OpenGov.

All of Ontodia's products and services are currently still available and OpenGov is actively working on an integration roadmap.

Shopify, a developer of software for online stores, acquired chat bot Kit CRM. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Going forward, Kit will continue to work on their product offerings under the Shopify umbrella from San Francisco. Eight Kit employees will be joining Shopify and they will continue building out Kit’s product offerings.

Founded in 2013, Kit had raised funding from Technicolor Ventures and Visionnaire Ventures.

Augmented reality company Magic Leap acquired Israeli software solutions provider NorthBit. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition is said to have been made so Magic Leap can reinforce its cyber security.

NorthBit was co-founded in 2012 by CEO Gil Dabah and CTO Ariel Shiftan.

Appriss, a provider of data, risk assessment and analytic solutions, acquired Sysrepublic, a global provider of analytics for retail businesses. No financian terms of the deal were disclosed. 

With offices in Los Angeles, London and Warsaw, Sysrepublic is best known for its suite of advanced exception reporting, case management, and real-time integration tools. These solutions enable retailers to identify, prevent, and investigate retail fraud and operational breakdowns, thereby reducing shrink and loss and maximizing profits. 

Sysrepublic will be merged into the retail division of Appriss, The Retail Equation, creating a single market leader in both retail exception-based reporting and return fraud solutions. 

Founded in 2002, Sysrepublic's RTI and Secure analytics solutions processed more than 23 billion transactions in 2015.

Cloud service desk software provider Freshdesk acquired real-time customer support provider Airwoot. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Airwoot will continue to support their existing customers, and function as a standalone product. The Airwoot team will focus on enhancing Freshdesk’s social offering.

Founded in 2012, Airwoot had raised funding from Kae Capital. 

Airbnb acquired ChangeCoin, the company behind ChangeTip, an app that allowed people to tip with BitCoin. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The deal is said to be an acqui-hire, with ChageCoin's seven engineers coming to join Airbnb. The acquisition did not include any IP or assets of the company.

Founded in 2014, ChangeCoin had raised $8.16 million in venture funding from 500 Startups, Galvanize Ventures, Pantera Capital and Transmedia Capital, among others. 

Danlaw, a connected vehicle, automotive electronics and embedded engineering company, acquired Rapita Systems, a provider of real-time verification solutions for aerospace and automotive embedded systems. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

With the integration of Rapita products, Danlaw has strengthened its portfolio of embedded software tools to include on-target testing.

Rapita Systems specializes in providing on-target software verification solutions for large, critical real-time embedded software systems in the avionics, space and automotive electronics markets.

Private equity firm Webfolio Management acquired ad-tech company PicReel.com. No financial terms of the deals were disclosed. 

PicReel is now part of a larger organization that is operating several brands in the mar-tech and ad-tech vertical. The majority of PicReel employees will continue to work from their European and Asian offices, joining Webfolio's core team working from its world headquarters in Reno, NV.

PicReel customers will benefit from the marketing and advertising services offered under the Webfolio Management Inc. umbrella, which includes OnlinePRNews.com, Blogsvertise.com and NewWorldPodcasting.com

Pegasystems, a company that provides enterprises with strategic business applications, acquired OpenSpan, a software provider of robotic process automation and workforce analytics software. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

OpenSpan uses robotic automation to ease the burden on customer service representatives by automating routine desktop tasks, thus increasing employee productivity and job satisfaction.

Founded in 2005, OpenSpan had raised $31 million from FTVentures, Globespan Capital Partners, In-Q-Tel, Matrix Partners and Sigma Partners.

ORBCOMM, a provider of Machine-to-Machine and Internet of Things solutions, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Skygistics, a provider of satellite and cellular connectivity options. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Also included in the agreement were Skygistics' South African and Australian subsidiaries. 

Skygistics will add distribution for ORBCOMM’s products in some of the fastest growing IoT markets, including South Africa and 22 other African nations.

The transaction is expected to close in May 2016, subject to customary closing conditions.

American broadcasting company  The E.W. Scripps Company acquired multi-platform satire brand Cracked from Demand Media. The purchase price was $39 million in cash. 

The Cracked team will continue to operate out of its Santa Monica offices and will be led by Mandy Ng Rusin, general manager and vice president, and Jack O'Brien, vice president and editor-in-chief.

Cracked launched in 1958 as a humor magazine. It was purchased in 2007 by Demand Media, which focused on growing the website Cracked.com. Cracked had revenue in 2015 of approximately $11 million and was profitable.

Logitech International, a Swiss global provider of personal computer and tablets, agreed to acquire Jaybird, a developer of wireless audio wearables. The price was $50 million in cash.

Logitech does not expect the acquisition to materially impact its FY 2017 guidance, recently shared at the company’s Analyst and Investor Day in March. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the coming weeks.

Jaybird was founded in 2006. 

Transport Innovation, UK-based taxi freephone calling service, acquired the assets of Minicabster, a UK ‘minicab’ price comparison and booking app. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Minicabster had entered administration, a process in the UK where a company has incurred debt that it is unlikely to be able to service. Transport Innovation has only acquired the technical assets of the company, not the company itself.

Founded in 2011, Minicabster had raised $2.57 million in venture funding.

Anaqua, a provider of intellectual property management software and services, acquired AcclaimIP, a patent analytics software solution, as well as Free Patents Online, a free patent search tool. No financial terms of the deals were disclosed. 

The acquisition of AcclaimIP will enrich Anaqua’s Intellectual Property (IP) Management software with patent analytics.

Combined with the IP operational insight delivered by ANAQUA HyperViewTM, Anaqua will bring new levels of intelligence and visibility to every participant in the process of creating, protecting and monetizing intellectual property.

 As part of the Anaqua family, Free Patents Online will continue to be a world-leading source for patent research information.

Oracle signed an agreement to acquire Crosswise, a provider of machine-learning based cross-device data. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The addition of Crosswise further broadens the Oracle ID Graph to construct a complete view of consumers' digital interactions across multiple devices.

Founded in 2013, Crosswise had raised $5 million in venture funding.

(Image source: quotesgram.com)