M&A roundup - week ending 9/26/15

Google acqui-hired Oyster; 4chan was sold off; FanDuel bought AlphaDraft; Gartner acquired Capterra

Sterlite Technologies, a power & telecom products manufacturer, entered into a definitive agreement for the acquisition of Elitecore Technologies, a global telecom software product company. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

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. 

Founded in 1999, Elitecore had raised $10.3 million in venture funding. 

French bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa acquired Leetchi, the company behind MANGOPAY, a payment processing solution for marketplaces. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed, but it is being reported that more than $56 million (€50 million) was spent to acquire 86 percent of the compan

In addition to acquiring the company, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa will commit $11.1 million (€10 million) in new investment. Founder and CEO Céline Lazorthes is keeping 14 percent of the company. The new subsidy will work on internationalization, product development and more. The team will grow from 40 to 80 people in the next two years.

Leetchi had raised $7.9 million in venture funding.

Viral video company Jukin Media acquired People Are Awesome, an online video brand dedicated to showcasing acts pushing the boundaries of human endeavor. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

People Are Awesome's YouTube channel currently has more than 400,000 subscribers and 241 million views.

Its team of co-founder and general manager Jean Coffey and co-founder Daniel Rice will become Jukin Media employees and work with Jukin’s team in London.

Cengage Learning, a global education company, acquired Learning Objects, am education technology company. No financial terms were disclosed. 

Learning Objects complements Cengage Learning’s existing portfolio of award-winning course solutions and enables the company to take advantage of the momentum toward competency-based learning, adaptive learning and open educational resources.

In addition, Cengage Learning will be able to offer instructors and institutions a content-agnostic platform with flexible program-level curriculum development and delivery models and a unified learner experience.  Cengage Learning will also be able to serve as a preferred technology partner for other publishers seeking new and innovative content delivery solutions.

Gutenberg Technology, a developer and provider of digital publishing solutions for publishers, acquired MOOC provider Neodemia, Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2013, Neodemia created MOOCs for corporate clients including BNP Paribas, l’Association Laurette Fugain, BDO, l’Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, and others.

Neodemia co-founder Laurent Boinot will join Gutenberg Technology. 

Clinigen Group, a global pharmaceutical company, acquired Link Healthcare, a specialist pharmaceutical and medical technology business. The price includes an initial consideration of £44.5 million and a maximum of approximately £100 million based on achievement of milestones.

John Bacon, Group Chairman and Founder of Link, will be joining the Clinigen Board as a non-executive director upon Completion of the acquisition.

Google acqui-hired the team from Oyster, which offers a monthly subcription service for e-books. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.  

A portion of the Oyster team has joined Google Play Books, and the service will beshutting down over the next several months. CEO Eric Stromberg and co-founders Andrew Brown and Willem Van Lancker are said to be part of the team that is joining Google.

Oyster had raised $17 million in venture funding, most recently a a $14 million round in January of 2014. Investors included Founders Fund, Highland Capital Partners, BoxGroup, Founder Collective, SV Angel, and Hydrazine Capital.

International digital hospitality service Velocity Mobile made its first acquistion in Cover, a mobile payments app. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Cover employees will join the Velocity team across multiple disciplines, and Velocity will invest in the Cover mobile apps and payment infrastructure. Venues will have the option to keep the stand-alone iPad-based solution or upgrade to Velocity's payment and loyalty platform fully integrated with their POS, which includes a venue dashboard and customer relationship management (CRM) tools.

Cover had raised $7 million in venture funding. 

Imageboard website 4chan was sold by founder Christopher Poole to Hiroyuki Nishimura founder of anonymous online message board 2Channel. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Poole is not expected to serve an active role in 4chan’s future development. He stepped down from daily maintenance of the site in January, handing over the reins to a handful of part-time deputies who moderate and manage it.

There is no indication of what plans Nishimura has for the site going forward.

WalmartLabs, the technology power behind Walmart Global eCommerce, acquired engagement and insights platform PunchTab. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

a Silicon Valley company known for building a software platform that empowers brands like Walmart and Sam’s Club to better understand and engage with customers in a unified way online, on mobile and in physical stores.

As part of the acquisition, six PunchTab technologists will join WalmartLabs, and the company also be acquiring PunchTab’s technology, which will be used to enhance its existing customer relationship management tools.

PunchTab was founded in 2011 by Mehdi Ait Oufkir, who will be joining the WalmartLabs team. Five software engineers from PunchTab will join the customer acquisition and retention team at WalmartLabs.

The company has raised $11.5 million in venture funding. 

Payment startup ShopKeep acquired Ambur, an iPad and iPhone point of sale system. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

ShopKeep will keep the product alive as it integrates it, and will be taking on Ambur’s 1,500 customers in the process.

Founded by former restaurateurs Ansar Khan and James O’Leary, Ambur provides a set of options specifically designed for full-service, quick-service and fast casual restaurants, as well as bars and food trucks. Khan has already joined ShopKeep’s business development team, and the acquisition brings the company’s merchant base to more than 20,000.

Prosper, a peer-to-peer lending marketplace, acquired personal finance analytics company BillGuard. While no financial terms of the deal were disclosed, the New York Times is pegging the price at $30 million. 

Founded in 2010, the Tel Aviv-based BillGuard uses crowdsourcing and big data analytics to help consumers detect fraud and wrongful payment card charges. It has been downloaded over a million and a half times since its release.

The company has raised $16.5 million in venture funding from investors that included Bessemer Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, IA Ventures and SV Angel. 

FanDuel, a one-day fantasy sports operator, acquired fantasy eSports platform, AlphaDraft. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

This partnership marks the first time FanDuel will have a product for the eSports community. FanDuel will leverage the partnership to enhance and expand core product offerings in order to further reach new sports fans while maximizing engagement.

Investors in AlphaDraft to date include former NBA Commissioner David Stern, Melo7 Tech Partners, Metamorphic Ventures, WME, Upfront Ventures, IDG Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Freestyle Capital, KEC, Amplify.LA and others. 

Online auction house Auctionata acquired valuation company ValueMyStuff. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

VMS offers fee-based valuations with a team of over sixty fine art, luxury objects, antiques and collectibles specialists who have formerly worked at major international auction houses. With over 469,000 valuations and 400,000 customers, it is one of the largest online valuation companies in the global market.

VMS was founded in 2009. It saw revenues of €35.7 million (US$39.7 million) in the first half year 2015.

Helpchat, a chat-based personal assistant application, acquired deal-discovery platform, Niffler. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

The aquisition will help Helpchat accelerate the growth of its personal assistant engine.

Founded in 2014, Niffler had raised $1 million in venture funding from SAIF Partners. 

Rentrak, a provider of worldwide consumer viewership information, acquired SponsorHub, a Big Data platform for the sports and entertainment industry. No financial terms were disclosed. 

Through its acquisition of SponsorHub, Rentrak will offer products that measure the effect of social media on television, dynamic ad insertion, online video advertising, movies and branded content integration.

SponsorHub had raied $800,000 in venture funding from Maxfield Capital and individual angel investors. 

Gartner, a provider of research and analysis on the global information technology industry, acquired  Capterra, a company that helps organizations find the right business software to meet their needs. Terms of the deal were not diclosed. 

The acquisition of Capterra is consistent with Gartner’s growth strategy to invest in developing world-class products and services that help clients make the right technology-related decisions, every day.  

Vista Point Advisors acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Capterra.

3D design software company Autodesk signed a definitive agreement to acquire netfabb, a developer of software solutions for industrial additive design and manufacturing. Autodesk plans to use foreign capital for the transaction, which is expected to close in Autodesk’s Q4 FY2016.  Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Autodesk will also make a strategic investment in FIT Technology Group, the parent company of netfabb and provider of additive manufacturing software and services.

Autodesk plans to continuing to develop, sell and support netfabb software as well as integrate netfabb technology into Autodesk’s solutions for product design and additive manufacturing, including the Spark 3D printing platform.

The two companies will collaborate to increase adoption of technology for industrial additive manufacturing. 

AppDirect, a cloud service commerce company, acquired AppCarousel, a provider of app management platforms for connected cars and fleets, smartphones, smart screens, tablets, and other connected devices. No financial terms were disclosed. 

The acquisition will support AppDirect’s rapidly growing mobile business while also enhancing its Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities.

Founded in 2011, AppCarousel will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of AppDirect.

InfoScout, a provider of real-world analytics for brands, reached a definitive agreement to acquire Shelfie, an innovative retail data crowdsourcing company. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

The acquisition accelerates InfoScout’s ability to help data-driven marketers. Shelfie’s co-founder and CEO, C.J. Acosta will join InfoScout to lead marketing initiatives, while co-founder and CTO Edward Betancourt will join the team to lead development of InfoScout’s Insights platform.

Shelfie had raised $910,000 in venture funding from HIGHLINEvc, Jim Fletcher, Michael Serbinis and Mike Volker.

(Image source: cafef.vn)