VENTURE CAPITAL MARKET REVIEW, ISSUE V
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Second week of August became a period of few significant mergers, large investments and new start-ups for the world venture market.
So, “blue giant” Intel announced its plans of investing into wireless technologies segment. After announcement Intel bought Axxia Networking Business. Second trend is the development of “Internet of Things”: smart devices producing company Electric Imp received $15 million.; South-Korean Samsung has bought SmartThings start-up – company is oriented on managing household appliances with mobile devices.
M&A. Intel Has Bought Axxia Intel has scooped up the LSI Axxia networking chip business from Avago Technologies for $650m in cash. The acquisition sees Intel acquire Axxia Networking Business’ ARM and PowerPC-based processors destined for enterprise and wireless network hardware. Avago, once part of HP’s Agilent unit, acquired LSI last December for $6.6bn. In May, the company also shed LSI’s Accelerated Solutions Division (ASD) and Flash Components Division (FCD) to Seagate for $450m.
M&A. IBM Merges CrossIdeas and Lighthouse IBM bought a small security software company called Crossideas, which was founded in 2011 and which sells a suite of identity management software called Ideas. The Ideas software includes access management and as well as risk analysis, reporting for compliance, and connectors to popular databases, middleware, and application suites. The company had 90 customers in the banking, manufacturing, energy, and government sectors, with its largest customers managing over 100,000 users and millions of access points across their applications. Earlier this year, Crossideas had integrated the Ideas tools with IBM’s own Security Identity Manager, and it looks like Big Blue just figured it might as well own the company and figure out how to build a better, single product.
M&A. Yahoo Has Acquired “Pandora for Places” New acquisition of Yahoo is focused on improving the company’s local search capabilities: it has bought Zofari, a local recommendation app that uses machine learning, natural language processing and third-party data from sources like Foursquare to extract information that matches you the user up with places one might enjoy visiting. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The company’s four employees will join Yahoo Search Team. For now, Zofari’s iOS, Android and web apps will remain active.
M&A. Samsund Buys SmartThings for $200 Million Samsung Electronics Co. announced it’s buying SmartThings, a high-profile startup that has become a poster child for a movement to bring intelligence to all manner of everyday devices. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. But the online publication TechCrunch in July estimated the price at $200 million. SmartThings, which has been based in Washington, will move its headquarters to Palo Alto, Calif., where Samsung has operations that work with startups and pursue investing activities. The deal is the latest sign that big companies are staking out positions in what industry executives call the Internet of Things. That broad term encompasses just about any product that can be augmented with computing and communications capability, including doorlocks, smoke alarms, wearable devices and new-wave security cameras. SmartThings has created an unusually influential position since its founding in 2012. It sells a $99 home controller device, but its broader functions include operating an online service and setting specifications to help developers create designs for gadgets that work together and are controlled using smartphone apps.
M&A. Salesforce Has Bought RelateIQ for $391 Million Salesforce.com Inc. has agreed to acquire RelateIQ Inc., which automatically captures data from email, calendars and smartphone calls, in a deal valued around $390 million. The deal will be one of Salesforce.com’s more expensive acquisitions. The acquisition is less than the $2.5 billion the company paid for online marketer ExactTarget Inc. in 2013 and the $689 million for social media marketer Buddy Media Inc. in 2012. RelateIQ, a Salesforce competitor, uses big data to help corporate salespeople. For instance, it can find the closest link in their company to a potential client based on data collected from their smartphones.
M&A. CoreOS Start-up Acquired Quay.io CoreOS, the company behind the increasingly popular open-source CoreOS operating system for warehouse scale computing, today announced that it has acquired Quay.io, a service that specializes in hosting private Docker repositories. Many developers who use Docker either use Docker’s own public repository or create their own private repositories. Quay.io takes the work out of hosting those repositories and starting today, CoreOS’s customers who sign up for its recently launched paid Managed Linux service will get access to the newly launched CoreOS Enterprise Registry, powered by Quay.io. Quay.io‘s two New York-based co-founders will join the CoreOS team and CoreOS will use this opportunity to open a New York office.
INVESTMENT. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Invested in Lookout Start-Up Mobile security vendor Lookout receive $150 million in a new rounf of funding that should help ease the transition from concept to consumer market. The company also is getting some big names to jump on board, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions. Beyond Bezos Expedition, others believing there is something in Lookout are Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Wellington Management and Goldman Sachs. For Lookout, the goal of bringing top-notch security for the world’s mobile devices has been its priority. As more and more users establish their device as their means of banking and doing business, Lookout hopes that its security solutions will help bring privacy and security to the forefront of the consumer tech industry.
STARTUP. Electric Imp received $15 Million Electric Imp today announced it has completed $15 million in Series B funding from new investors Foxconn Technology Group, PTI Ventures and Rampart Capital, and returning investors Redpoint Ventures and Hugo Fiennes, CEO and Co-founder of Electric Imp. The new funding adds to the $8 million Series A investment the company received in 2012, and will accelerate the continued rapid growth, development and worldwide adoption of the company’s platform and product portfolio. The Electric Imp connectivity platform launched in 2012 as the realization of Fiennes vision of creating a comprehensive solution for building IoT devices. The company’s proven WiFi-enabled platform – featuring fully integrated hardware, software, OS, APIs and cloud services – dramatically decreases cost and time to market while increasing flexibility, security, and scalability.
STARTUP. Vostok Nafta Invested $25 Million Into GetTaxi Israel-based Get Taxi Inc. received $25 million from Vostok Nafta, a Swedish-based investment company. With this announcement of $25 million, GetTaxi said it would soon be closing a full $150 million funding round.
STARTUP. Windsor Circle announced $5.25 Million in Round B Windsor Circle, the industry-leading customer retention software company, announced it raised $5.25 million in Series B financing. Comcast Ventures, the venture capital affiliate of Comcast Corporation, led the funding round. Existing investors IDEA Fund Partners and Triangle Angel Partners (TAP) also participated. Steve Case, AOL founder and active investor, added $100k of funding to the round A. The recent financing will enable Windsor Circle to extend its retention automation technology, expand into new channels and verticals, and meet increasing customer demand by expanding both team and marketing efforts.
STARTUP. Desire2Learn raised $80 Million in Round A Desire2Learn, a startup that has bootstrapped for over a decade, has raised its first round of venture capital funding from New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and OMERS Ventures, the venture arm of one of Canada’s largest pension fund managers. Desire2learn (“D2L”), which specializes in cloud-based teaching tools, plans to use the funding to hire more staff and step up its marketing efforts. Since it launched in 2009, it has expanded to 700 customers and 8 million students, according to John Baker, Desire2Learn’s founder and chief executive officer.
INVESTMENT. Life.SREDA invests funds in SumUp Life.SREDA venture fund announced it is going to invest funds into mobile acquiring operator Sum Up. Service allows to receive payments by credit cards, using one’s smartphones and tablet PCs. Such financing will enable start-up team to further development of technodecisions and to introduce Chip&Pin boxes. Due to this boxes user can pay by chipped cards. Also SumUp owners plan to invest funds into Chip&Pin promotion and software improvement. Except Life.SREDA fund, BBVA Group and Groupon have participated. Financial terms are not disclosed, but experts tell about EUR 10 million and more.
M&A. KupiVIP acquired Price3D Oscar Hartmann’s KupiVIP group announced it is buying Price3D start-up. No financial terms are disclosed. Price3D service allows to check presence and price of goods in shops. This platform is the information aggregator. According to KupiVIP statement, Price 3D will optimize negotiations with suppliers and pricing processes. |
