M&A roundup - week ending 5/7/16

Adobe bought Livefyre; LinkedIn acquired Run Hop; Pinterest purchased URX

Video-sharing website Vimeo acquired VHX, a platform that allows video creators sell their content from their own websites. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

VHX's entire 22-person team will be coming to work at Vimeo. The company is currently headquartered in Brooklyn and will relocate to Vimeo’s headquarters, also located in New York, in the coming months. VHX will continue to operate under the name VHX initially, but eventually the platform will live under the Vimeo brand.  

Founded in 2010, VHX had raised $10.25 million in venture funding, from investors that included Alexis Ohanian, Chris Sacca, Comcast Ventures, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Lowercase Capital and Union Square Ventures, among others.

Its publishers have grossed over $9.6 million and served over 1.5 million customers to date.

Google acquired Synergyse. a Chrome extension that puts a virtual guide into Google Apps, training users on how to get the most out of applications like Gmail, Calendar, Drive and Docs. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Synergyse will be incorporated into Google docs for all users, who will be able to access it for free, at some point later this year. In the meantime, new customers will be able to download the Chrome extension for free while the company is being integrated.

Founded in 2013, Synergyse was being used by 3,000 organizations worldwide, supporting four million people. Organizations that were using the service were seeing 35 percent higher adoption on average.

Online textbook rental company Chegg acquired writing tools company Imagine Easy Solutions. The deal is worth $42 million in an all-cash transaction.

Approximately $25 million of the total was paid at closing and $17 million of it is going to be paid by April of next year. On top of that there are potential additional payments of up to $18 million over the next three years that remain subject to contingencies, which can be paid in either in cash or common stock, whichever Chegg chooses.

Imagine Easy’s capabilities will be integrated into Chegg's portfolio of services, including Chegg Study and Chegg Tutors.

Pinterest acquired mobile deeplinking provider URX. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

As per the deal, URX will be sunsetting its core product, AppViews, immediately.

About half the company is joining Pinterest on the product management, engineering and partnerships teams, while co-founder and CEO John Milinovich will join Pinterest as a product manager.  They will be working on content related projects across the organization, including Search & Discovery, where Pinterest seeks to develop a rich understanding of pins based on the data behind them; and Rich Pins, where Pinterests want to help people take action on the Pins they discover.

 Pinterest will not be incorporating any of URX's technology.

Founded in 2013, URX had raised $15.1 million in venture funding and was valued at $40 million. Investors included Accel Partners with First Round Capital, Google Ventures and SV Angel. 

GrubHub acquired restaurant delivery service LAbite. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition will allow GrubHub to expand its reach in the Los Angeles area. 

Founded in 2001, LAbite connect users to 2082 Southern California restaurants and hundreds of local professional drivers. The compay delivers over 5,000,000 each year.

eBay acquired Swedish intelligent automation and optimization platform ExpertMaker. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Upon the close of the transaction, Expertmaker's employees will join eBay’s structured data product and technology team.  Expertmaker's Founder and CEO, Lars Hard, will join as Director, Data Science reporting into Amit Menipaz’s organization. 

Founded in 2006, Expertmaker has been a partner of eBay’s since 2010, most recently helping with eBay’s structured data initiative. Founder Lars Hard will continue to lead his team as a part of eBay and serve as a visiting lecturer at Lund University in Sweden.

EVA Automation, a maker of audio/video products, acquired Bowers & Wilkins, a maker of home cinema and hi-fi speakers. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The two will operate as one combined company under the Bowers & Wilkins name.

Bowers & Wilkins ceo Joe Atkins will remain the CEO of the combined company, while Gideon Yu, CEO and founder of EVA, will be its Executive Chairman.

Adobe entered into a definitive agreement to acquire social depth platform Livefyre. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Livefyre will be part of Adobe Experience Manager and integrated across Adobe Marketing Cloud to make user generated content available across all eight digital marketing solutions.

Founded in 2009, Livefyre customers include CNN, The Coca-Cola Company, Cox Media Group, Dow Jones Wall Street Journal, Hallmark, Huff Post Live, Intel, Kimberly-Clark, Major League Baseball, Mashable, National Geographic, News Corp, the PGA Tour, Sears, Tourism Australia, Univision, Warner Music Group and others.

The company had raised $67.3 million in venture funding. 

The acquisition is subject to certain closing conditions and expected to close within the next months. 

Formlabs, a  designer and manufacture  of desktop 3D printers, acquired Pinshape, a 3D printing community. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Pinshape will operate as a standalone business within Formlabs.

Founded in 2013 with headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, Pinshape had raised $100,000 in fundig from 500 Startups, China Rock Capital and Dave McClure. It has over 90,000 users.

Wayin, a social media intelligence company, acquired EngageSciences, an interactive marketing platform. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

As a part of the deal, Wayin will bring on EngageSciences' complete executive team.  EngageSciences CEO Richard Jones will become the head of the combined company. 

The EngageSciences platform launched in 2011, and raised $3.88 million in funding.

The company has global offices in London, Oxford, Sydney, Dubai and New York, with clients in 76 countries including publishers and brands such as Bauer Media, Microsoft, Vodafone, AOL, Discovery and Rogers Communications.

Microsoft acquired Italian Internet of Things company Solair. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The integration of Solair’s technology into the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite will continue to enhance its complete IoT offering for the enterprise. Tom Davis, CEO of Solair, and the rest of the team are joining Microsoft.

Solair’s IoT customization and deployment solutions are built on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

The company was founded in 2011. 

IMS Health and Quintiles entered into a definitive merger agreement. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The merged company will be named Quintiles IMS Holdings, Inc. Based on the closing of IMS Health and Quintiles common stock prices on May 2, 2016, the equity market capitalization of the joined companies is more than $17.6 billion and the enterprise value is more than $23 billion.

The combined company expects to maintain dual headquarters in Danbury, CT and Research Triangle Park, NC. Ari Bousbib, chairman and chief executive officer of IMS Health, will become chairman and chief executive officer of the merged organization. Tom Pike, chief executive officer of Quintiles, will become vice chairman. The company’s Board of Directors will be comprised of six directors appointed by the Quintiles Board of Directors and six directors appointed by the IMS Health Board of Directors. The lead director will be Dennis Gillings.

IT services provider Ergo acquired software licensing company Micromail. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Micromail will continue to operate independently and work with the wider community of Microsoft resellers and channel partners in Ireland.

 Founded in 1987, and for some years, Micromail is Ireland’s only indigenous Microsoft Licensing Solutions Partner. It has an annual turnover of €17 million. 

Bivarus, a patient experience analytics company, acquired The Jackson Group,  a healthcare-focused measurement and consulting firm. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition expands Bivarus’s offerings to capture and operationalize patient and employee insights for healthcare organizations and adds CAHPS administration and related consulting services.

Following the acquisition, Alan Jackson, President and CEO of The Jackson Group, will serve as Chief Customer Officer (CCO) of Bivarus. Tony Jackson will serve the company in a strategic advisory capacity. All other team members will continue in their current roles with the same organizational reporting structure.

The Jackson Group was founded in 1976. 

Skydance, a diversified media company, acquired game developer The Workshop Entertainment. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Skydance is using the purchase to launch Skydance Interactive, a dedicated subsidiary that will create and own original video games and virtual reality experiences. The Workshop will continue to offer its console game services.

The Workshop was founded in January of 2008. Its games included Sorcery, Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage for Borderlands 2, Rekoil: Liberator,v The Evil Within, Armored Warfare PvE and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.

Azrieli Group, an Israeli real estate and holding company, acquired e-commerce platform Buy2 Networks. Azrieli Group shall pay consideration of NIS 65 million ($17 million USD).

The acquisition, which was consummated after the group examined, over the last year, the future trends in this sector, is a strategic move whose purpose is to build a new growth engine in the digital sector in Israel.

Aviv Refuah, founder of Buy2, who will continue to act as CEO of the acquired company.

COCO, a provider of coworking and collaborative workspaces, acquired Enerspace Chicago, a coworking space in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Enerspace Chicago will be operated by COCO effective May 2, 2016 and becomes COCO's fifth location.

Enerspace Chicago was founded by Jamie Russo in 2012. Enerspace expanded to Palo Alto, CA in 2013 where it is now headquartered. Enerspace is also a member of the League of Extraordinary Coworking spaces, a global network of boutique shared work spaces. Enerspace members get one free week of coworking at each member space around the world.

Doxim, a provider of customer engagement SaaS solutions for banks, credit unions and wealth management firms, acquired DigitalMailer, an omni-channel marketing automation company.

Ron Daly, Founder and CEO of DigitalMailer, says the acquisition will allow him to devote full-time attention to Virtual StrongBox, where he also serves as President and CEO.  The acquisition of DigitalMailer expands Doxim’s U.S. presence, adding two new office locations to its existing office in New York City.

Founded in 2000, DigitalMailer serves more than 200 credit unions and community banks. The reach of Doxim clients now extends to more than 16 million consumers.

Kewill, a provider of software for supply chain execution, agreed to acquire LeanLogistics, a provider of transportation solutions for shippers, from Brambles. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Founded in 1999, LeanLogistics has hundreds of TMS customers across the US and Europe, and a supporting network of over 14,000 carriers.

Its cloud-based platform manages and optimizes over $10 billion of annualized freight spend for their customers.

The Dwyer Group, a companies that franchises trade service brands, acquired Germany-based Locatec, a leak detection business. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition supports Dwyer's 2016 international initiative to expand presence in European countries where Dwyer Group service brands currently operate.

Under the direction of Hartwig Finger, president of European operations at Dwyer Group, the company plans to operate Locatec in a way that will permit German franchisees to accelerate their growth, improve market penetration, and allow Locatec to expand into other countries.

ACT, a provider of college and career readiness assessments, acquired OpenEd, a K-12 standards-aligned open educational resource provider. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

OpenEd will be owned by ACT and will join Pacific Metrics, another ACT subsidiary, in the newly formed ACT Assessment Technologies group, which will be based in California. The group will be led by its newly named chief executive officer, Rich Patz, previously chief measurement officer for ACT.

Founded in 2013, OpenEd offers half a million assessments, homework assignments, videos, games and lesson plans to teachers, schools and districts across the country. It raised $2 million in venture funding from PivotNorth Capital.

iotum, a provider of group calling solutions, acquired TalkShoe, an Internet broadcasting and podcasting platform provider. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition of TalkShoe.com marks the fifth acquisition in the past three years for iotum, which owns several collaboration and teleconferencing products, including the original free group calling service, FreeConference.com. This is iotum's first foray into podcasting and broadcasting media.

Founded in 2005, TalkShoe has raised $1.13 million in venture funding.

i.am+, the consumer tech label of musician Will.i.iam, acquired Sensiya, an Israeli a mobile SDK. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Sensiya will become i.am+’s home base in Israel, working on growing their machine learning, Natural Language Processing and Natural Language Understanding capabilities. The two companies had begun working together a year and a half ago.

Founded in May 2014, Sensiya's investors include Yossi Vardi, Shlomo Nehama, Avi Shechter, and Stav Shacham.

Oracle acquired SaaS-based customer engagement and energy efficiency company Opower. The deal is for $10.30 per share in cash, valuaing the transaction at approximately $532 million.

Opower’s solutions enable over 100 global utilities, such as PG&E, Exelon and National Grid, to deliver a modern digital customer experience. Opower’s big data platform stores and analyzes over 600 billion meter reads from 60 million utility end customers, enabling utilities to proactively meet regulatory requirements, decrease the cost to serve, and improve customer satisfaction.

The company went public in April 2014.

LinkedIn acquired content distribution company Run Hop. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

This was an acqui-hire. Run Hop's two co-founders, Pete Davies and Evan Solomon, are joining LinkedIn. Davies is now a senior product manager on the content team. He will lead LinkedIn’s strategy on publishing and sharing content. Solomon is now a senior software engineer at LinkedIn. 

Founded in 2014, Run Hop had raised a small pre-seed and Angel round in early 2015 from investors that included Resolute Ventures.

Video chat room app Airtime acquired video chat platform vLine. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

All vLine customer data will be permanently deleted. The team will be creating products and experiences as part of Airtime.

Founded in 2010, vLine had raised $1.5 million from Kleiner Perkins and Harrison Metal.

Indian e-commerce company Snapdeal acquired boutique technology startup TargetingMantra. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Going forward TargetingMantra’s team will further the on-going initiative to build the ‘customer experience engine’ at Snapdeal, to personalise the shopping experience for customers.  

Founded in 2013, TargetingMantra raised $1.1 million in venture funding from 500Startups, Nexus Venture Partners and One97 Mobility Fund. 

Vonage, a provider of cloud communications services for businesses, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Nexmo, a provider of Communications Platform as a Service. The deal is worth $230 million in cash and stock.

Nexmo is the world's second largest CPaaS company as measured by revenues. This acquisition accelerates Vonage's growth strategy, deepens the Company's technology capability and elevates its leadership position in Cloud Communications.

Tony Jamous, co-founder and CEO of Nexmo, will join Vonage as President of Nexmo, a Vonage company, along with co-founder Eric Nadalin, Chief Technology Officer, and Nexmo's 170-person team.

Founded in 2010, Nexmo raised $21.83 million in venture funding.

Freeman, a provider of brand experiences, acquired Exhibit Surveys, a market research and consulting firm. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The move supports Freeman's goal to continue to grow its resources to support strategy, design and digital by adding an experienced group of researchers with a deep understanding of data and measurement.

Exhibit Surveys and its employees will continue to work from their offices in Red Bank, NJ. The company will retain the Exhibit Surveys brand in the marketplace for the immediate future and operate under FreemanXP, Freeman’s brand experience agency.

GTCR, a private equity firm, signed a definitive agreement to acquire Onvoy, a provider of wholesale voice-enabling services nationwide, from Communications Infrastructure Investments. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

As part of the transaction, GTCR will partner with CEO Fritz Hendricks and the Onvoy management team as they continue to grow and develop the company's service offerings and geographic breadth. 

Founded in 1991, Onvoy is the nation's third largest CLEC by rate center coverage.

The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2016.

(Image source: arprentalhomes.com)