M&A roundup - week ending 5/28/16

Facebook acquired Two Big Ears; Priceline bought Woomoo; Intel purchased Itseez

Facebook acquired spatial audio technology company Two Big Ears. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The company will be hiring key members of the Two Big Ears team, including founders Abesh Thakur and Varun Nair.

In conjunction with the acquisition, Facebook has taken Two Big Ears' 3Dception Spatial Workstation and turned it into what is now called "Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation," which Facebook calls a "software suite for designing spatial audio for 360 video and cinematic VR."

Two Big Ears will now be allowing users to download its pipeline for cinematic VR and 360 video, including the authoring tools, encoder and rendering engine, for free.

eBay acquired international ticket marketplace Ticketbis. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Ticketis will become part of the StubHub business, which eBay bought for $310 million back in 2007. At this time, StubHub intends to retain all Ticketbis employees. Upon the close of the acquisition, Ticketbis will increase StubHub’s headcount by over 30 percent. At that time, the two businesses will be integrated and the two catalogues of inventory will be merged. 

Founded in 2009, Ticketbis had raised just under $26 million in venture funding from investors that included Active Venture Partners and Marc Bell Ventures, and individuals such as Daniel Curran, Eneko Knorr and Fabrice Grinda.

The deal expected to close in mid-2016, and is not expected to impact the second quarter 2016 or full year 2016 guidance that eBay provided in its first quarter 2016 earnings report.

Private equity firm Spire Capital acquired On Campus Marketing, a provider of affinity programs for universities and colleges, from middle-market private equity firm Dominus Capital. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Founded in 1981, On Campus Marketing utilizes university-branded direct marketing targeted at the parents of college students to sell a diversified group of products.

The company is heaquartered in Ewing, New Jersey.

Priceline acquired Woomoo, the company that built app prototyping tool POP. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The deal is being described as acqui-hire, with all six of Woomoo's employees coming to work at Priceline. They are relocating from Taipei to Bangkok to work on app development on hotel booking website Agoda, which is owned by Priceline. The Woomoo team will work on mobile apps at Agorda, focusing on improving user experience.

Asset International, a provider of business intelligence and actionable insight for the asset management community, acquired data and research firms Market Metrics and Matrix Solutions from FactSet. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition expands Asset International’s proprietary asset management and insurance industry data sets. The acquisition also provides Asset International with a delivery model from C-level face-to-face meetings to Financial Clarity analytics platform.

Market Metrics was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Boston. Matrix Solutions was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in London. The acquisition is expected to close within 45 days. Asset International was advised by RBC Capital Markets and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP on the transaction.

In-home tech support services HelloTech and Geekatoo merged to create the first nationwide in-home tech support network. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The new company, known as HelloTech, will be led by HelloTech CEO and co-founder Richard Wolpert.

Founded in 2014, HelloTech had raised $17 million in venture funding from investors that included Accel, Crosscut Ventures, Greycroft Partners, and Upfront Ventures, among others. Geekatoo had raised $2.2 million from 500 Startups, Dave McClure, and Microventures, among others.

Intel acquired customized computer vision software provider Itseez. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

This acquisition furthers Intel’s efforts to win in IoT market segments like automotive and video, where the ability to electronically perceive and understand images paves the way for innovation and opportunity.

Itseez will become Intel’s Internet of Things Group (IOTG) roadmap, and will help Intel’s customers create deep-learning-based CV applications like autonomous driving, digital security and surveillance, and industrial inspection

Bregal Sagemount, a private equity firm, acquired Discovery Data, a provider of data on retail financial services industry firms and professionals. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

As part of the transaction, Discovery Data also acquired Meridian-IQ, a provider of online databases and advisor market information.

Discovery Data provides the financial services industry with access to all broker-dealers and registered investment advisors, over 680,000 reps, 2,300 trust companies, and 1.8 million insurance agents.

The acquisition of Meridian-IQ expands Discovery Data's client coverage to nearly 900 institutions and over 20,000 users across asset managers, wealth managers, custodians, clearing firms, insurance companies and service providers.

Founded in 2010, Meridian-IQ had raised $2 million in venture funding.

KeepKey,the maker of a hardware wallet, acquired MultiBit, a Bitcoin wallet for Windows. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Within a few weeks the complete the transfer of control of the MultiBit code and website will be complete, at which point MultiBit will step back from further development. 

KeepKey are committed to maintaining MultiBit HD as an open source MIT licence project going forward.

MultiBit was founded in 2011.

Nortek, a global diversified industrial company, acquired Nuiku, a next-generation natural language processing platform. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

In conjunction with the acquisition of Nuiku, Nortek has launched a technology incubation team, responsible for bringing together engineering activities from across Nortek to qualify and develop value-added customer solutions. The team will closely monitor trends in the marketplace, seeking opportunities to acquire or internally develop emerging technologies that can be adopted rapidly and deployed efficiently across multiple of Nortek's businesses.

Founded in 2013, Nuiku raised $1.6 million in venture capital.

PeopleAdmin, a provider of talent management software for education, acquired TeacherMatch, a provider of recruitment, screening, professional development, and workforce planning solutions. No fiancial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The combined company will operate under the PeopleAdmin name. PeopleAdmin already serves over a third of all U.S. educators, who in turn serve more than 1 out of every 3 students in the United States. With TeacherMatch, it will add more than 800 new customers, including four of the nation’s five largest school districts.

TeacherMatch was founded in 2011.

Globant, a digitally native technology services company, acquired service design company WAE. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

WAE is comprised of We are London Limited and We are Experience. The team will be joining Globant’s Discover team.

Founded in 2003, WAE has a team of 40 professionals working from their offices in London and New York. Globant has more than 5,200 professionals in 11 countries working for companies like Google, Linkedin, JWT, EA, and Coca Cola, among others.

TransDigm, a developer of military aerospace components, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ILC Holdings, the parent company of Data Device Corporation, a supplier of databus and power supply products for the global military and commercial aerospace markets, from Behrman Capital. The total purchase price was $1 billion in cash. 

TransDigm expects to finance the acquisition through a combination of cash on hand, existing availability under its revolving credit facility and new debt.

Founded in 1964, DDC revenues are anticipated to be over $200 million for the fiscal year ending December 2016.

The acquisition, which is expected to close before the end of fiscal 2016, is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

Enghouse Systems,  a provider of enterprise software solutions, acquired NetBoss Technologies, a provider of correlated Network Analytics and OSS to communication service providers. The purchase price was  approximately CDN $9.3 million, subject to certain price adjustments.

Spun out from Aviat Networks in 2010, NetBoss has over 200 communication service provider and utility deployments worldwide, supported by a staff of 40 full time employees.

The company had raised $8.5 million in venture funding.

Gaming studio Kabam acquired game developer Superweapon. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Superweapon is the company behind mobile title Dawn of Steel. The team, a small group of former EA and Zynga executive producers, art directors and software engineers, has joined Kabam Los Angeles.

The team will be integrated onto game teams currently developing two unannounced AAA mobile titles.

Superweapon was founded in 2013. 

Universal Music Group acquired digital marketing agency Fame House. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

Fame House will remain based in Philadelphia and continue to provide and expand on their services as an agency for Universal Music as well as third-party clients. Mike Fiebach, CEO and founder, and Eric Hahn, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, will continue to lead the agency. Fiebach and Hahn will report to Boyd Muir, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Michele Anthony, Executive Vice President of UMG.

The acquisition of Fame House will advance UMG's strategy to create unique commercial opportunities for its artists and labels through social media, consumer engagement, direct-to-consumer and direct-to-fan initiatives, as well as activations for brands, sponsors and live events.

Founded in January 2011 Fame House's clients include artists, brands and festivals including Eminem, Pearl Jam, Mitchell & Ness and Electric Zoo.

Yippy, a developer of search-based applications, data normalization and aggregation through enterprise app service environments, agreed in principle to acquire Michael Cizmar & Associates, a provider of enterprise search solutions. No financial terms were disclosed. 

Upon completion of the acquisition, MC+A founder Michael Cizmar will join Yippy as a member of its senior management team. Yippy will sell its EASE 360 Platform and Blue Flame appliance through MC+A, which will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yippy.  In his new role Mr. Cizmar will have primary responsibility for expanding Yippy's relationships with other GSA resellers.

Yippy anticipates that the acquisition will be closed by mid-July 2016.

Qualtrics, a provider of customer experience software, acquired Statwing, a provider of Web-based statistical analysis software. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

 Qualtrics will integrate Statwing’s point-and-click tool into the Qualtrics Insight Platform, removing technical barriers and making data science faster, easier and more accessible. The combination of the Qualtrics Insight Platform and Statwing will help organizations dig deeper, be more predictive and increasingly data driven.

Founded in 2012, Statwing is a Y Combinator graduate that had raised funding from David Coallier, Jeff Hammerbacher and Matthew Kimball, among others, 

JackRabbit Systems, a developer of custom travel search engines for destination and travel portal websites, completed the acquisition and integration of Zerista, a provider of online event management platforms for the life sciences, financial, media, and association industries. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

The combined entity will continue to offer its existing products that provide different types of recurring SaaS revenue. JackRabbit plans to introduce several new services in the coming year. In addition, the company is seeking to acquire complementary companies to serve its customers: city/state tourism departments (DMOs), hoteliers, and event providers.

JackRabbit will maintain offices in Denver, Colorado and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Founded in 2009, Zerista had raised $2.32 million in venture funding from Kickstart Seed Fund.

rbb Communications, a marketing communications firm, acquired OutOfTheBlue, an advertising and creative design agency. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

OutOfTheBlue joins rbb’s family of brands, including the recently added digital marketing firm SpiderBoost Communications;Gibbs-rbb, a consumer/food product marketing agency; and Digital Park, an internal division offering integrated digital strategy, social marketing management and content creation to rbb clients.

Founded in 2001, OutOfTheBlue develops effective advertising campaigns and branding strategies for clients in the financial, hospitality, cruise, health care, retail and restaurant industries.

Valorem Consulting, am information technology consulting firm, acquired IdentityMine, a business and technology firm focused on interactive design and user experience. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. 

The acquisition demonstrates Valorem's commitment to strategically expanding its capabilities and geographic footprint.

Valorem's leadership team will continue to function as it does today with Domnick Parretta and Justin Jackson as Managing Partners. IdentityMine Co-Founder Mark Brown will join Valorem in a key leadership role, reporting directly to Domnick Parretta. IdentityMine Co-Founder David Meunier also joins Valorem as a strategic consultant.

IndentityMine was founded in 2001.

Guscio, a company focused sports data, acquired Sportsdata, a platform designed to track and assess progress in physical literacy in primary schools, and Dataplay, a white label platform for the tracking and assessment of performance in sports. The total price for the two deals was around £2.5 million.

The company will use the two companies to help fight obesity among children.

The deals happened the same day that Guscio began trading on the alternative investment market (Aim) of the London Stock Exchange. 

(Image source: bizjournals.com)