HCL Technologies Acquires PowerObjects

HCL Technologies has acquired PowerObjects, a US based provider of Microsoft Dynamics Customer resource management solution, for $46 Million, to bolster its offerings in the applications development space. Together HCL and Power Objects will now offer one of the largest Microsoft Dynamic Practices in North America.

Based in Minneapolis, PowerObjects has more than 250 employees who will now be transferred to the rolls of HCL. The total consideration for the transaction includes contingent payments which are subject to certain financial milestones. The existing leadership team of PowerObjects will remain in place and no workforce changes are planned.

HCL has been on an acquisition spree of mostly small companies. PowerObjects is the fourth company it has bought this year. This week, HCL would buy Swedish automaker Volvo Group’s External IT business, which provides IT Infrastructure, mainframe services and application operation services, for an all-cash payment of $138 Million.

Microsoft Dynamics is one of the fastest growing CRM products. Research firm Gartner expects CRM to become a $36 Billion Worldwide market by 2017 growing at an annual rate of 13.3% since 2014. It is projected to grow faster than any other enterprise software category, as businesses look to build upon term customer relationships.

Hindustan Coca-Cola acquires Georgia Tea & Coffee

Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd, the bottling arm of American beverages company The Coca-Cola Co has acquired the Georgia Tea and Coffee Business from Coca-Cola India Pvt. Ltd. The manufacturing and distribution of Georgia will be handled across the country by Hindustan Coca-Cola.

Georgia offers a range of premium hot and cold beverages, including fresh brew coffee, hot pre-mix flavored tea, coffee, iced tea and coffee, through its vending machines. In India, it has already deployed about 5000 machines in the past decade. Fast Food Restaurant chain McDonald’s is one of Georgia largest customers in India.

With the transition of Georgia to HCCB, the company has now evolved to be a one stop beverage solutions provider offering the entire flavor range in sparkling juice, tea, coffee, and still categories to end consumers. Currently, the Georgia pre-mix is being manufactured at the Hershey India in Bhopal, which is the co-packer facility of HCCB.

The brand is more than a decade old in India with close to 5000 machines deployed around the country. It has partners, including McDonald’s, besides Cinema Halls and Multiplexes as well as key corporate offices.

Grofers Acquires Townrush

Hyperlocal delivery startup Grofers has bought business-to-business logistics service provider Townrush, closing its second acquisition within a week. Earlier this week, Gurgaon based Grofers had acquired SpoonJoy. Both acquisitions are essentially acqui-hires where a company is bought for the team instead of its existing business.

Founded in May this year, Townrush had raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round from Lightspeed Venture Partners. Grofers is one of the most well capitalized start-ups in the Hyperlocal delivery segment, having raised $45 Million from Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management. Grofers is making these acquisitions primarily for the teams with no significant cash or equity being exchanged.

Townrush closed down in six months. The company used to compete with Roadrunnr, Parcelled, Shadowfax, and Grab, among others. At least 20 such start-ups have emerged in the last 10 months, making it an overcrowded space. However, only Roadrunnr and Shadowfax have raised any significant capital, mopping up $11 Million and $8.5 Million.

Hyperlocal delivery saw a huge amount of ventures spring up this year but many have found it difficult to raise follow on capital. The unit economics in the delivery business is a big challenge. In 2015, as many as 290 startups received seed funding, up almost 90% from last year, but follow on rounds have been muted despite the glut in initial rounds.

Grofers to acquire SpoonJoy

Hyperlocal delivery startup Grofers is in talks to buy Bengaluru based SpoonJoy, as the food ordering app struggles to raise money from new and existing investors. Grofers, run by Locodel Solutions Pvt. Ltd, is expected to sign a acqui-hire deal with SpoonJoy. Operations of SpoonJoy will be shut down once the deal is done.

As investor interest starts to ebb in the crowded food ordering sector, the market is expected to see more such consolidation or strategic investments. Since the start of the year, investors have pumped $150 Million into 20 food ordering startups. The acquisition of SpoonJoy is expected to largely to be a stock deal with some component of cash being involved.

About 40 people from SpoonJoy are expected to join Grofers in the tech and operations departments. SpoonJoy was launched in July 2014 by IIT graduates. The company is backed by Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. In May, the company raised $1 Million in a Series A funding from SAIF Partners.

There are early signs of a slowdown and startups in overcrowded sectors will either fail to get higher valuations in their next rounds or not find fresh funds, leading to cost cuts and consolidation over the next one year. However, Food tech companies will not disappear, given the large markets for home deliveries in large cities.

Citrus Payments acquires Zwitch

Citrus Payments Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which operates an online checkout and payment solution Citrus Pay, has acquired Bengaluru based payment platform Zwitch, run by iZwipe Payment Technologies. Citrus Pay is a fintech company focused on providing simplified payment experience to consumers.

Citrus partners with the airlines, utilities, marketplaces and 6000 other merchants to provide consumer payments and mobile banking services. After raising a Series A round of $2 Million in 2012 from Sequoia, the company grew to grab a $5.5 million Series B round from investors. Two days ago, it raised its Series C round of $25 Million led by Sequoia Capital and Ascent Capital.

The business has taken a stride forward and the recent investor backing pushed the envelope for Citrus Pay consumer business. With more than 15 Million users already using Citrus to transact online, Citrus ventured into the consumer payments space with the Citrus Cube app a personal bill management app that claims to see over 10 Million Transactions in a month.

Zwitch, a full stack payment platform enabling developers accept online and mobile payments, was founded in 2013. It claims to have over 1,000 merchants onboard and records daily transactions of about Rs 10 Lakh. This is the first acquisition by Citrus. Citrus competes with CCAvenue, ibibo group PayU, One97 Paytm Payments, ZaakPay and PayPal. 

Western Digital to buy SanDisk

Western Digital Corp, agreed to buy SanDisk Corp. for about $19 Billion in cash and stock, a deal that positions the disk drive maker for growth in the struggling storage industry. SanDisk was thought to be shopping for a buyer as the semiconductor industry rapidly consolidates and industry watchers had said Western Digital or Micron Technology Inc. would be logical bidders.

Western Digital is facing challenges to its core hard disk drive business, which has been under pressure from the success of sales of Apple Inc. iPad and other tablet computers that store data on flash memory chips rather than on magnetic disks. Those devices have long weighed on the sales growth of consumer laptop computers, which are major users of disk drives. Acquiring SanDisk could be a hedge and a driver of new growth.

The acquisition comes about three weeks after an arm of China Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd. agreed to pay $3.78 Billion for a 15% stake in Western Digital, the latest US tech company to scramble for politically connected Chinese partners amid the difficult business environment. SanDisk had benefited from the explosive growth in demand for products such as smartphones.

But its results have lagged behind recently amid a variety of problems, from product qualification delays to lower than expected sales of enterprise products. The deal is expected to add to earnings within 12 months of closing and it will achieve synergies of $500 Million within 18 months.

Infosys to acquire Noah Consulting

India’s second largest software services exporter Infosys Ltd has acquired a 100% stake in information management consulting firm Noah Consulting LLC in an all cash deal valued at about $70 Million. The acquisition will help the information technology company gain expertise in providing end to end data management services to oil and gas industry.

Established in 2008, Noah helps upstream oil and gas companies plan, architect and deploy information solutions to unlock the value of their oil and gas assets. It works with different players in the sector so called super majors, independents and oil field service companies to provide strategic data management solutions. The company has two offices in oil rich areas of Texas and Alberta.

Acquisition of Noah comes at a time when global oil prices have fallen steeply, resulting in a need for oil and gas companies to improve operational efficiency by using data analytics and smarter information technology solutions. With this acquisition, Infosys is uniquely positioned to offer end to end data management services to oil and gas companies globally.

The combination will bring together Noah Industry knowledge, information strategy planning, data governance and architecture capabilities with Infosys ability to provide technology and outsourcing services to oil and gas clients on a global scale. 

Deals app ‘Little’ acquires Trideal

Deals discovery app ‘Little’ has acquired Chandigarh based curated deals marketplace Trideal for an undisclosed amount. Incubated in Punjab Chitkara University, Trideal offers deals across food and beverage, and entertainment with over 1,000 merchants. Operating in Chandigarh, Mohali and Punjab, Trideal claims it gets 7000 plus unique visitors every month.

Little Internet Pvt. Ltd, which operates Little, raised $50 Million from mobile recharge firm Paytm, SAIF Partners and Tiger Global Management in June 2015. The company provides real-time Hyperlocal deals to customers across services like restaurants, movies, hotels, salons, gyms, and spas. It was founded by Zovi founders Manish Chopra and Satish Mani.

Trideal has a large customer base and significant merchant database in Chandigarh offering excellent deals. The core of Trideal is similar to that of Little, Hyperlocal and irresistible deals to customers and a significant business partner to the merchants. The company claims to have enrolled over 8000 merchants offering 27000 plus deals across 11 cities. By March 2016, the company wants to offer over 50,000 deals and aims to hit a gross merchandise value run rate of $170 Million. 

AB InBev to buy SABMiller

Anheuser-Busch InBev NV agreed to buy SABMiller Plc. for about 68 Million pounds, raising its bid after several rejections to clinch a record industry deal that will bring one out of every three bears sold worldwide under a single company.

The Budweiser maker will pay 44 pounds a share in cash for a majority of the shares in its nearest competitor. Belgian-Brazilian group AB InBev, the maker of Budweiser and Stella Artois lagers, struck a deal with the maker of Foster’s and Grolsch at the fifth time of asking. The deal is in the top five mergers in corporate history and be the largest takeover of a UK Company.

SABMiller two largest shareholders, Altria Group Inc. and Bevco Ltd, can receive cash and stock valued at 39.03 pounds a share for their stakes, which account for 41% of the company. They won’t be able to sell the shares for five years and will have the right to nominate directors. After years of speculation, the deal has been hastened by the impact of slowing economies in the emerging markets of China and Brazil.

SABMiller, the world largest brewer, claimed the previous bids undervalued the company, upping the pressure, ahead of regulatory deadline by which time its rival would have to make an official offer or walk away for at least six months.

Dell to acquire EMC Corporation

In one of the mega acquisitions in the Global IT Space, PC maker Dell Inc. will acquire EMC Corporation for about $67 Billion to create the world largest privately controlled, integrated technology company. The record technology deal will unite two mature companies and will create an enterprise tech powerhouse.

The acquisition will help privately held Dell diversify away from a stagnant personal computer market and give it greater scale in the faster growing and more lucrative market for managing and storing data for enterprises. The combination of EMC and Dell will prove to be a winning combination for customers, employees, partners and shareholders.

The merger agreement includes a 60 day ‘go shop’ provision that allows EMC to solicit bids from other parties and pay a discounted breakup fee to Dell if a deal is made with another company. The deal will be financed through a combination of new equity from Dell Owners. VMware will remain an independent, publicly traded company. JP Morgan Chase and Co advised Dell and Silver Lake & provided financial alongside Credit Suisse Group AG, Barclays Plc., Bank of America and other companies. 

Apple acquires VocalIQ

Apple Inc. acquired a UK software startup that could give its digital assistant Siri a boost. VocalIQ has built software aimed at making it easier for people to speak to computers in a more natural way, an area in which Siri and other voice recognition services have struggled. The company has been particularly focused on selling its product to auto manufacturers including a partnership with General Motors Co.

VocalIQ Technology is based on Machine Learning, an area of Artificial Intelligence in which a computer improves as it ingests more information. As a person uses VocalIQ Software it helps a device become more accurate at predicting what commands to execute. Other technology companies including Google and Facebook have been conducting similar research in this area.

Apple has been steadily improving Siri since its debut in 2011. While at first criticized for understanding only the most rudimentary of requests, the company has been adding features for getting sports scores, setting reminders, searching for an iPhone picture or finding directions. Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and generally discuss purpose and plans. 

Freshdesk acquires Frilp

Chennai based online customer service provider Freshdesk has acquired Frilp, a social recommendation app for exchanging references and recommendations. Frilp brings users contacts on social networks, phonebook and office network at one place, and helps them find services and businesses recommended by the contacts.

The acquisition will help Freshdesk leverage the technology of Frilp and enable customers to connect with friends on social networks who might provide solutions. This can also bring down the burden on companies customer service teams. Earlier, Freshdesk had acquired 1click, video chat software for an undisclosed amount to provide real time video chat based customer support to its clients.

Frilp was founded in 2012 and has raised $500,000 in funding from angel investors. In six rounds of funding, Freshdesk has so far raised $94 Million from Tiger Global, Google Capital and Accel Partners. Freshdesk competes with Salesforce and Zendesk.