Dentsu Aegis acquires SVG Media

Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), a global digital marketing major headquartered in London, UK, has acquired Indian marketing services group SVG Media Pvt. Ltd in an all cash deal. Smile Group owns majority stake in SVG Media, which counts Xplorer Capital as an institutional backer.

SVG Media was founded in 2006 as a business owned by Smile Group, that runs a slew of e-commerce and internet businesses. SVG Media has four business units, namely DGM (focused on banking, financial service and e-commerce clients), Komli (premium digital marketing through Facebook and Twitter), SeventyNine (mobile-focused advertising platform) and Tyroo (ad-tech platform similar to InMobi), together reaching over 150 million unique viewers in India. It has offices in Gurgaon, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru.

As part of the deal, Smile Group has sold DGM, Komli and SeventyNine (under SVG Media) to DAN. Tyroo, which is retained, is transferred to a separate legal entity and will continue to be owned by Smile Group. SVG Media had acquired Komli Media and SeventyNine in August 2015 and December 2014, respectively, and DGM in 2010.

For DAN this comes as their 10th acquisition in India since 2012, according to data shared by the company. Some of these include Fractal Ink Design Studio, Happy Creative, WATConsult, Webchutney and Taproot. Just recently, it closed the acquisition of Grant Group, a 59-year old family run advertising services company in Sir Lanka. DAN was formed in 2012 through the acquisition of Japanese advertising giant Dentsu by British media buying Aegis Media in 2012.

Part of Dentsu Inc., DAN is made up of 10 global network brands: Carat, Dentsu, Dentsu media, iProspect, Isobar, mcgarrybowen, Merkle, MKTG, Posterscope and Vizeum. Headquartered in London, it operates in 145 countries worldwide with more than 38,000 dedicated specialists.

Zaggle acquires Pennyful

Hyderabad-based Zaggle Prepaid Ocean Services Pvt. Ltd, which operates digital payments and cashback company Zaggle, has bought online coupons firm Pennyful in a cash and stock deal. The acquisition will help Zaggle offer benefits to consumers and corporate employees, and develop technology products and solutions.

Zaggle is moving towards an omni-channel marketing platform following the acquisition of Pennyful. Zaggle, over a period of five years, has built a huge repertoire of business-to-business clients. The focus is on the business-to-business-to-consumer market of over 25 million [customers], and we want to create more and more value for this set of consumers.

Bengaluru-based Pennyful Online Pvt. Ltd was founded in 2011 in the US. The firm entered the Indian market in November 2012. The cashback and coupons company has 1,000 brands and claims to have customers from more than 800 cities. Zaggle was founded in 2011 and currently has six offices across India with over 1,000 corporate clients and over 1,500 merchants on board.

Other players in the deals segment include Nearbuy, mydala, CouponDunia and CashKaro, among others. Last month, online deals startup Couponhaat raised pre-Series A investment from Austria-based angel investor Axel Wawrina. In November 2016, rewards app Kloseby, which helps users earn rewards when visiting stores, raised $100,000 (around Rs 68 lakh) in seed investment.

Flipkart acquires eBay India

India’s largest online retailer Flipkart has closed a mammoth funding round of $1.4 Billion from Tencent Holding Ltd, eBay Inc., and Microsoft Corp., in the biggest ever start-up funding round that both boosts Flipkart ability to compete with arch-rival Amazon India and takes the company a step closer to presenting itself as the only option to the US firm’s Indian arm.

Flipkart Ltd will also buy eBay’s India business as part of the $1.4 Billion deal. The funding round values Flipkart at $11.6 Billion, which is lower than its peak valuation of $15 billion but still higher than the valuation it was assigned by some of its own investors last year. Flipkart may get additional capital soon as it is in talks to buy smaller rival Snapdeal (Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd). 

The deal valued eBay’s India unit at $200-$250 million. eBay India will continue to operate its platform as a unit of Flipkart; it becomes the latest acquisition for Flipkart, which has bought the fashion retailers Myntra and Jabong as well as mobile payments app PhonePe in the past three years. The Bengaluru-based online retailer fetched a pre-money valuation of $10.2 billion in the latest round. Pre-money refers to the value of the company excluding the round’s capital infusion.

 Before this round, Flipkart had last raised funds in June 2015 when existing investors led by Tiger Global Management pumped $700 million into the company, valuing it at $15 billion. Since starting out in 2007, Flipkart has raised nearly $5 billion in capital, accounting for more than 45% of funds raised by all 10 Indian unicorns, which include Snapdeal, Paytm, Ola and Quikr. Amazon has committed $5 billion toward its Indian operations, of which it has already spent more than $2 billion.

DesiredWings buys Catapooolt

Reward based crowdfunding platform DesiredWings.com has acquired crowdfunding and community engagement platform Catapooolt for an undisclosed amount. Following the acquisition, both the brands will continue to operate as separate entities focusing on different segments of the crowd funding industry.

Owned and operated by Starting Blocks Media Ventures Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai based Catapooolt was founded in July 2013. It caters to sectors like sports, politics and social enterprises, apart from startups. Catapooolt had raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from VentureNursery Angels in April 2014. The round also saw participation from: ah! Angels, the angel network of CLUB ah!; Calcutta Angels; and a group of industry professionals.

It claims to have funded over 70 projects, raising more than Rs 150 crore from over 4,000 contributors. DesiredWings is a category-agnostic platform facilitating business idea validation and development, apart from helping startups pre-fund their future products and services. The crowdfunding segment has grown considerably in advanced economies. According to an estimate by World Bank, crowdfunding investments are estimated to touch $90 billion by the end of 2017 in the US alone. But the space is still nascent in India—most online crowdfunding platforms in the country have come up in the last 2-3 years.

In January this year, Mumbai-based crowdfunding platform for creative artists Wishberry raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding led by iSPIRT’s. In April 2016, crowdfunding startup Impact Guru had secured $500,000 (Rs 3.3 crore) in seed funding from Singapore-based venture capital firm RB Investments and Fundnel, a Southeast Asia-based private investment platform. In January 2016, crowdfunding platform BitGiving had raised an undisclosed amount from Wazir Advisors founder and managing director, Capillary Technologies co-founder and Impulse Marketing’s co-founder, among others.