Info Edge acquires iimjobs.com

Info Edge (India) Ltd, the operator of jobs site Naukri.com and real estate portal 99acres.com has agreed to acquire the company behind jobs portal iimjobs.com. Mumbai-listed Info Edge said in a stock-exchange filing it will buy Highorbit Careers Pvt. Ltd for Rs 80.82 crore ($11.6 million) in cash.

Info Edge said the proposed acquisition will help it consolidate its position in the online recruitment solutions segment where Naukri.com already has a leadership position. Delhi-based iimjobs.com is focused on middle- to senior-level hiring in fields such as finance, consulting, business process outsourcing, technology, and sales and marketing.

Highorbit was started by Tarun Matta in 2008 as a side project while he was still working with RockeTalk, a multi-platform mobile app. He left RockeTalk in 2010 to focus on the portal full time. An IIM Indore alumnus, Matta previously worked with Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, CSC, Neilsoft Ltd and ITC Infotech.

The company had raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from One97 Communications, India Venture Partners, Shailesh Vikram Singh, Pallav Nadhani, Abhishek Rungta, Anand Lunia, Sachin Garg and others in March 2012. In November 2016, iimjobs.com secured $2 million (Rs 13 crore then) in its Series A round of funding led by early-stage investment firm India Quotient. Tracxn Labs and Calcutta Angels also participated in this round.

Scaleworks acquires AI commerce provider SearchSpring

Scaleworks, the San Antonio based private equity firm acquires startups with between $4 Million and $10 Million in annual run rate and works to grow them, while additionally extending 12 – to – 16 month venture loans to B2B businesses as much as 6 times their monthly recurring revenue. Scaleworks bought eight companies with its first $60 million fund, which collectively grew 52% to $80 million in revenue last year.

In February, it launched a second fund — this one totaling $80 million — to snatch up startups with greater than $4 million in ARR, and it announced one of the first acquisition targets today. Scaleworks says it has acquired SearchSpring, a privately funded Colorado-based ecommerce company that provides AI-powered search and navigation products to direct-to-consumer brands like Moen, Kate Somerville, Volcom, Wet Seal, Natori, Bikini.com, Wildfox, Lime Crime, Wine Enthusiast, Charles & Colvard, SaintBernard Sports, and Bethesda Game Studios. Since its founding in 2007, SearchSpring says it has powered over 9.2 billion searches.

SearchSpring’s platform — which integrates with Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, and Mivaworks — works by ingesting companies’ catalogs, using natural language processing to break terms into their component pieces, and thoroughly indexing those pieces to suss out relationships among them. It’s able to tell the difference between a shirt dress and a dress shirt, for instance, and to correct typos and mistakes in search queries while quietly hiding irrelevant product types and accessories in results.

Moreover, it optionally boosts products with the highest conversion rate to the top and captures shopping behavior to supplement product data. SearchSpring joins recurring payments platform Chargify, content ingestion network provider Filestack, automated user research company Qualaroo, embedded analytics suite Keen, and office mail automation startup Earth Class Mail in Scaleworks’ growing portfolio. Among the firm’s successful exits to date are FollowUp, Mailgun, and Assembla.

Zendesk acquires conversational platform Smooch

Customer service software provider Zendesk revealed that it has acquired Montreal based Smooch the company behind an eponymous business-to-customer messaging platform, for an undisclosed sum. Zendesk also took the wraps off WhatsApp and Slack integrations and announced new apps available through its Zendesk Marketplace.

For the uninitiated, Smooch’s AWS-hosted suite collates messages across web, mobile, and social messaging and combines user activity and existing profile data, enabling admins to create more tailored experiences. With Smooch’s embeddable software development kit and APIs for Android, iOS, and the web, a hotel, for instance, could give guests the ability to ping staff on-property, and an online retailer could manage issues like incorrect shipments and returns across channels.

Smooch supports speech on popular voice assistants, like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, along with text on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Line, WeChat, Telegram, Twitter DM, Viber, Kakao Talk, SMS, and Rich Communication Services (RCS). Zendesk notes that Smooch has the distinction of being one of the largest providers of WhatsApp Business integration, which allows organizations to manage and send non-promotional automated messages to customers — like appointment reminders, shipping info, or event tickets — for a fixed rate.

Thanks to Smooch, Zendesk says that customers in its early access program can now reach users directly through Chat, its live chat solution for mobile and the web. Smooch brings real-time push notifications, as well as standard messaging features, like typing indicators, timestamps, cloud message storage, media support (for emojis, GIFs, images, videos, and file attachments), and read and delivery receipts.

Freshworks acquires Natero

Customer engagement service Freshworks which you may still remember under its old name of Freshdesk, has acquired Natero, a customer success service with some AI/ML smarts that helps businesses prevent churn and manage their customers.

The acquisition will help the company complete its mission to provide its users with a 360-degree view of their customers. Freshdesk started out with a focus on customer support and then added additional functionality for marketers and other roles over time. Today, however, companies want this full 360-degree view of a customer and are able to offer differentiated service to their top customers, for example. In many ways, the acquisition of Natero closes the loop here.

Natero will continue to exist as a stand-alone product, but it will also become part of the Freshworks 360 suite, Freshwork’s integrated customer engagement suite. Ahead of today’s acquisition, Natero had raised a total of $3.3 million. That’s not a lot for a startup that launched back in 2012, but Soules noted how he was able to fund the company’s expansion through revenue. The two companies did not disclose the acquisition price.

Spencer to acquire Nature’s Basket

Goenka group owned Spencer Retail Ltd is set to acquire gourmet retail chain Nature’s Basket Ltd for INR 300 crore, as it seeks to expand its footprint in the Western region, the company filings with the BSE show. The acquisition is subject to shareholders approval.

The deal will give Spencer’s access to 36 Nature’s Basket stores in prime locations of Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru. The Kolkata-based retail chain will also get access to Nature’s Basket’s online platform.

Natures Basket, which began operations in 2005, sells fruits, vegetables, fish and meat, besides fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and staples. The retail chain is known for stocking up on niche gourmet products, including imported food such as Italy’s Grana Padano Cheese, Blue Cheese, Parma Ham, and bluish-purple chips from the US. It competes with the likes of Future Retail Ltd’s Food Hall, and Alibaba Group-backed Big Basket.

In 2017-18, Nature’s Basket contributed just about ₹291 crore to Godrej Industries’ consolidated revenue of ₹9,968.83 crore, the company’s annual report shows. Spencer’s Retail Ltd, a separate listed entity, had earned total revenue of ₹1,051.81 crore in 2017-18, on a stand-alone basis, according to BSE filings. In 2018-19, it generated a total revenue of ₹2,214.98 crore.

Netflix buys StoryBots

Netflix Inc. acquired the StoryBots children’s media brand as the world’s largest streaming service providers to challenge rival Walt Disney Co.’s kid-friendly online platform scheduled to start in November.

Under the deal, StoryBots creators Gregg and Evan Spiridellis will produce more original content including series and short-form specials, Netflix said Thursday, without disclosing terms. Los Gatos, California-based Netflix has more than 148 million paid subscribers worldwide and spent about $7 billion on programming last year.

Buying StoryBots and expanding its programming may help Netflix draw more children and parents, a battleground market as family-focused Disney plans to start offering movies and shows from its Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars franchises online later this year. Netflix already streams “Ask the StoryBots," which features cylindrical animated characters addressing queries such as “What makes a bird a bird," and “What are good carbohydrates."

While Netflix and Disney square off over families, competition in the broader industry is likely to get even hotter. Apple Inc., AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. are also among the cash-rich giants planning streaming services as TV viewers shift away from cable TV to video-on-demand platforms.

Reliance Brands to buy Hamleys

Reliance Brands Ltd, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd, acquired British toy retailer Hamleys for 620 crore in an all-cash deal. Reliance Brands signed an agreement to acquire a 100% stake in Hamleys Global Holdings Ltd from Hong Kong based C. banner International.

Hamleys, founded in London in 1760, is one of the world’s oldest retailers of toys and has changed hands several times. It was bought in June 2003 by the Baugur Group, an Icelandic investment company. In the same year, Hamleys was delisted from the London stock market by Baugur Group, which had paid $68.8 million for the company. In 2012, it was sold for $78.4 million to France’s Groupe Ludendo. Hamleys reported losses of £12 million in 2017, when it last reported its financials.

Hamleys has 167 stores across 18 countries. In India, Reliance Retail has the master franchise for the brand and operates 88 stores across 29 cities. This worldwide acquisition places Reliance on the frontline of global retail.

Medlife acquires e-pharmacy Myra

Healthcare services platform Medlife International Private Limited has acquired medicine-delivery app Myra Medicines in a cash and stock deal. The acquisition will support Medlife’s pharmacy business and help it accrue profits. At the same time, Medlife will consolidate and strengthen the delivery of medicines and extend the reach to more Indian cities.

It claims to leverage data science and technology to automate a highly operational business their prediction algorithm is able to ensure 95% order fulfillment with just 25 days of inventory holding and delivery costs of fewer than 40 per order achieving near positive unit economics.

The company leverages its express delivery abilities to maintain lowest order level costs. The company claims that its on-demand model is built on the back of a best in class ordering and warehousing system that ensures orders are picked packed and dispatched post compliance and legal in just 5 minutes.

Medlife was founded in 2014 by Kumar and Prashant Singh and began operations with online drug deliveries before expanding into online consultations with medical professionals and diagnostics. The company is currently looking to raise capital from external sources. This is the second reported acquisition that Medlife has made this year. In January, it bought Mumbai-based digital healthcare platform and home diagnostics services company MedLabz for an undisclosed sum.

Publicis to buy Epsilon for $4.4 Billion

Publicis group SA agreed to buy digital marketing firm Epsilon from Alliance Data Systems Corp. for $4.4 Billion in cash, propelling the French advertising group further beyond a weakening conventional ad business in its biggest takeover yet.

Epsilon’s services span loyalty programs to email marketing and its Conversant unit collects consumer data including transactions, location and web activity. A three-way battle for online marketing dollars is underway as e-commerce explodes; pitting the traditional ad companies such as Publicis, WPP Plc. and Omnicom Group Inc. against global consulting firms and the giant tech platforms: Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc.

The ad firms easily dominated traditional advertising in newspapers, billboards and television before the market went into decline. In the digital world, they are up against companies that harvest data from billions of social media users and often get closer to consumers by handling their transactions.

The owner of agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett Worldwide has a patchy record in managing acquired companies: digital ad technology is evolving rapidly and the group posted a loss in 2016 after writing down the value of one of its digital businesses. Publicis made one of the industry’s boldest bets on ad technology in 2015 with the $3.7 billion purchase of Boston-based Sapient, and Sadoun has staked the company’s future on digital tech businesses that he sees as “strategic game changers."

Milkbasket acquires Veggie India

Micro delivery startup Milkbasket has acquired Noida based online grocery venture Veggie India for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition would strengthen its distribution capabilities and grow its customer base to more than lakh households.

Ocado Garden Fresh Pvt Ltd, which operates Veggie India, was founded in January 2017. Veggie India, which operates a mobile app, helps users choose from more than 3,000 products including fruits and vegetables, organic products, packed and frozen food, beauty and hygiene products, and kitchen and household essentials. The app claims to have more than 5,000 users primarily from Noida and Ghaziabad.

The buyout comes months after Milkbasket raised $7 million (Rs 49 crore) in an extended Series A round led by US-based early-to-growth-stage venture capital firm Mayfield Advisors. Founded in 2015, Milkbasket currently has a presence in Delhi, Gurugram, Noida and Bengaluru.

Unlike bigger players in the online grocery delivery market such as BigBasket, Grofers, Amazon and Flipkart, Milkbasket positions itself as the online version of local mom-and-pop grocery stores but with more stock keeping units. It generally supplies perishable and non-perishable products that are bought in smaller quantities but with higher frequency.

McDonald acquires Dynamic Yield

American Fast Food Company, McDonald has entered into an agreement to acquire decision logic technology provider Dynamic Yield for $300 Million in an attempt to enhance customer experience and provide better personalized menus using digital technology.

This acquisition is an attempt to use personalized digital technology for better customer experience. It would enable the fast-food chain to customize the electronic menu boards' display of items, depending upon various factors such as weather, regional preferences and the time of day.

McDonald has emphasized on digital technology and has included self-order kiosks, digital menus boards and delivery services to boost the sales and to help it stand out among its competitors. This is the largest acquisition of the fast-food company and showcases the company's desires to use technology for speed growth in the ever-competitive restaurant industry.

Dynamic Yield has raised a total of $83.3 million from investors, including Innovation Endeavors, Bessemer Venture Partners and Marker Capital, as well as strategic backers like Naver (which owns the messaging apps Line and Snow), Baidu, The New York Times and Deutsche Telekom.

Spotify acquires Parcast

Spotify has announced the acquisition of Parcast as the company begins to explore the audio podcast arena for new content and business opportunities. This marks Spotify's third podcast-related acquisition in two months, and represents the company's ongoing plan to boost the music streaming platform as a hub for podcasts that can compete with Apple Podcasts.

Last month, Spotify purchased Gimlet Media for $300 million, acquiring the company's big-name podcasts like "Homecoming" and "Reply All." Around the same time, Spotify also purchased Anchor, a company that is more behind-the-scenes of the podcast world and lets its user’s record and create their own shows that can easily be shared online.

Parcast will be added to that list, and Spotify will now have ownership of its specialization in crime and mystery-themed podcast content, genres that are hugely successful in the market. Parcast is home to a big list of popular genres and podcasts, covering topics like cults, serial killers, haunted places, unexplained mysteries, extraterrestrials, and more. 

These purchased shows will also join new and original podcasts created by Spotify, all of which will be curated by the team that built Spotify's Discover Weekly playlist algorithm. Eventually, the music streaming company hopes to become the Netflix of podcasts, able to provide recommendations on what to watch and house both third-party and exclusive first-party content.

Netmeds acquires KiViHealth

Chennai based pharmaceuticals e-commerce portal Netmeds.com has announced the acquisition of another healthtech startup KiViHealth in a cash and stock deal. The Chennai-based company will invest about $10 Mn to integrate and grow KiViHealth business segment.

Ahmedabad-based KiViHealth is a clinic management platform, which helps patients to search and book doctor appointments, manage medical records, get notified on medicine schedule, and track their health timeline. Further, the startup uses artificial intelligence to give a chatbot like experience to its users and to maintain a health record for patients as well as doctors.

KiViHealth also serves the doctors through a digital prescription pad which allows doctors to generate digital prescriptions. The company was founded in 2015. KiViHealth claims to have enrolled over 3.1K hospitals and health centres, and in turn manages more than 2 Mn patient records, along with serving about 2K doctors through its website and mobile app.

NSEIT acquires cyber security company Aujas

NSEIT, the IT services focused subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange has acquired Aujas Networks Ltd., a company which provides information security consulting and IT risk management services.

Founded in 2008, Aujas has operations in India, the Middle East and North America. It employs about 400 cyber security professionals and has over 390 customers globally. The service portfolio includes information risk advisory, identity & access management, threat management and security analytics.

NSEIT currently provides technology solutions across industries such as capital markets, financial markets, banking and insurance. It also provides services relating to algorithmic trading (ultralow latency system), order management system exchange connectivity, Pre-trade and post-trade risk management, regulatory and compliance management, surveillance, exchange adapters, exchange simulator, and mobile trading.

According to data from Crunchbase, Aujas has raised $11 million since 2008 from a slew of early stage venture capital funds in India, including Chiratae Ventures (then known as IDG Ventures), IvyCap Ventures and Rajasthan Venture Capital fund. Aujas last raised $5.4 million from the 3 investors in 2013.

PayU to acquire Wibmo

Naspers owned Fintech Company PayU is looking to dominate the entire payments processes as it is in talks to acquire Bengaluru and Cupertino based Wibmo that specializes in processing online payments. The deal is reportedly expected to be $50 - $60 Million.

Wibmo offers its digital payment technology solutions and payment security in multiple countries including India. The company also offers 3D secure process of digital payments, which is the page where customers are asked to punch in their passwords or one-time passwords (OTPs) to authenticate digital transactions.

The company is certified by Mastercard, Visa, RuPay as well as PCI DSS and can therefore, process all forms of digital payments from cards to mobile based transactions.  PayU is doubling down on emerging fintech markets, and India is possibly the biggest geography for them. The company will be reportedly committing substantial capital for investments and acquisitions, particularly to build its credit and SMB lending businesses.

PayU has earmarked more than $1 Bn to deploy in India, as it bulks up its portfolio here inorganically. PayU India has emerged as one of the largest players in the online payments space after acquiring Citrus Payments in 2016. Since then, PayU has invested in digital lending startups like Zest Money, PaySense and Remitly.

Quikr to acquire Zefo

Online classifieds marketplace, Quikr is reportedly in talks to acquire Gurugram based used goods marketplace Zefo, for approximately $28.5 Million in an all-stock deal. Following the acquisition, Sequoia-backed Zefo will reportedly continue to operate as a separate entity.

Zefo was founded in 2015 manages its end-to-end operations, including product refurbishment and repairs of its sold products, in order to ensure a higher degree of standardization. In 2017, Zefo had raised $9.2 Mn (INR 60 Cr) in Series B funding. The round was led by prolific investors such as Sequoia India, Helion Venture Partners and Singapore-headquartered VC fund Beenext.

Founded in 2008, Bengaluru-based Quikr has followed an acquisition strategy to strengthen its various businesses and has acquired 14 startups till date including HDFC Developers, Commonfloor, Babajob, Hiree, Zimmber, and ZapLuk.

Quikr, which competes with OLX, Quikr and eBay, already hosts refurbished products advertisements on its platform but it does not offer repairs or delivery of the refurbished goods. The platform simply connects the buyer and seller, who then schedule the product pickup and payment among themselves.

Airbnb to buy HotelTonight

Airbnb Inc. agreed to buy HotelTonight, its biggest acquisition yet, in a move to increase hotel listings on the site. In early 2017, Airbnb acquired Luxury Retreats for about $300 million, its largest purchase at the time.

San Francisco-based HotelTonight offers last-minute hotel bookings, seeking to tap into unused inventory largely in urban areas, and the app has been a travel-industry darling since it launched in 2010.

The acquisition extends Airbnb’s reach even further into the hotel industry, where it has been a disruptive force since its launch just over a decade ago. Airbnb transformed the travel sector by persuading millions of people to open up their homes to strangers. It became such a market force that mainstream travel and hotel companies like Booking Holdings Inc. have been furiously spending to offer more home listings on their own sites.

Airbnb began highlighting hotels more prominently on its website and introduced a loyalty program, taking a step further onto the turf of its rivals. It more than doubled the number of rooms available in properties categorized as boutique hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, and other hospitality venues like hostels and resorts.

Zoho acquihires ePoise Systems

Chennai based SaaS startup, Zoho has acqui-hired an automated hiring product startup, ePoise Systems, for an undisclosed amount. The deal also included the acquisition of ePoise intellectual property rights.

ePoise Systems was founded in 2013. The Bengaluru-based startup offers an automated hiring software product targeted at mass recruiting companies. The product also has a series of pre-designed screening steps for various company profiles. Along with a set of assessments which finally lead to an automated video interview.

Indian startup, Zoho has more than 40 integrated online applications aiding multiple business operations such as sales and marketing, finance, email and collaboration, information technology and help desk, human resources and custom solutions like app creator and analytics.

The firm over 45 million users and has been expanding its product portfolio over the last several years. It offers its product separately as well as under a single user license as Zoho One. Manage Engine, a division of Zoho, helps its customers with on-premise IT management.

Zomato to sell UAE business to Delivery Hero

Berlin based food delivery player Delivery Hero has acquired United Arab Emirates (UAE) business of Gurugram based food delivery and restaurant discovery company, Zomato.

The acquisition will add 1.2 Mn monthly orders and $2 Mn monthly revenue to Delivery Hero’s Middle East and North Africa region business and will strengthen its leadership position in the UAE. The online food ordering company Delivery Hero is present across 41 countries in Europe, the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region. Delivery Hero also operates its own delivery service primarily in over 200 cities around the world. In India, Delivery Hero was invested in Foodpanda but later sold it for 1% stake in Ola in 2017.

UAE was the first global foray of Zomato in 2012 and soon accounted for 20% of its orders. The company also launched its premium service Zomato Gold in UAE in 2017 and in one year had over 380 restaurant partners for over 15,000 Zomato Gold members.

Zomato has been in a tough situation since its Bengaluru-based rival Swiggy raised $1 Bn in 2018, at the end to the year after joining the unicorn club earlier in the year. To challenge this, Zomato has also been in talks to raise a large funding round of $500 Mn-$1 Bn. Zomato recorded $1Bn in annual gross merchandise value. It also posted a 40% growth in its revenue for FY18 and targeted expansion to 100 cities across India.

Pine Labs in talks to buy Qwikcilver

New Delhi based online retail payments platform Pine Labs is in talks to acquire Bengaluru digital gift card firm Qwikcilver Solutions, as the former looks to creating a strong footing in the gifting space.

Pine Labs is looking to acquire Qwikcilver for over $100 Mn in a mix of cash and stock deal. Once the acquisition deal materializes, the existing investors in the company are expected to cash out, while the founders of the company may stay on with the team. Launched in 2008, Qwikcilver helps retail and corporate customers to enhance their sales, brand and loyalty through card-based interventions such as Gift Cards, Loyalty Cards, Discount Cards, Frequency Cards and Credit Cards. It also provides a cloud-drive software-as-a-service for various brands.

The company claimed to have handled gift-card transactions worth INR 3K Cr ($422 Mn) with 160 Mn transactions in 2016. In the same year, Qwikcilver had raised undisclosed funding led by Sistema Asia Fund, the proprietary fund of Russian conglomerate Sistema. Prior to that, Amazon had invested $10 Mn in Qwikcilver Solutions. Overall, the company is believed to have raised $20 Mn. It also counts Accel Partners and Helion Venture Partners among its investors.

The acquisition of Qwikcilver may give Pine Labs an edge in offering gift cards to small-and medium-sized stores with card payment facilities. The Indian gift card market is expected to reach $80 Bn – $85 Bn by 2024. Of which, e-gift cards are expected to account for a lion’s share with $70 Bn. Pine Labs was launched in 1998. The Sequoia Capital-backed fintech company counts many large corporates among its clients. It provides an integrated payment gateway services to its partners. It claimed to be processing about 450 Mn transactions worth over $15 Bn annually, as of March 2018.