Comcast to buy DreamWorks Animation

Comcast Corp, the parent of Universal Pictures, agreed to buy DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. in a deal valued at $3.8 Billion, building on the studio’s film and TV franchises by characters like Shrek as well as a US based production house.

Comcast will pay $41 a share in cash for the animation studio. Buying the maker of the Shrek and Kung Fu Panda films will bolster Comcast children lineup in theaters and add online assets like Awesomeness TV, which targets millennial on YouTube. Comcast would make an ideal parent for DreamWorks Animation, especially with its ownership of Illumination, maker of hit films Minions and Despicable Me.

Glendale, California based DreamWorks underwent a deep restructuring last year that reduced its workforce by 18% and cut the number of films it made after a series of flops. Under DreamWorks Animation, Illumination’s animators are largely based in Paris. With the acquisition, Universal gains a fully-fledged US based movie and TV producer and distributor.

Comcast would pay DreamWorks a fee of $200 Million if the deal is blocked by regulators. DreamWorks Animation would also provide a source of content for Universal growing theme park business. Universal already features Shrek rides at its parks in Florida, California, Japan and Singapore. The company is building a theme park in China, where Kung Fu Panda has been a big hit. 

Hello Curry acquires The First Meal

Quick service restaurant chain Hello Curry Pvt. Ltd has acquired The First Meal, a food and delivery startup which takes pre-orders for customized health food for cash and stock. The acquisition allows Hello Curry to enter the breakfast and meal box segment.

The food tech startup industry has been facing shutdowns. Lack of sustainable growth models in a fragmented market and harder customer acquisition has seen investors shying away too, after the initial euphoria. Hello curry which specializes in Indian food has been positioning itself as a quick delivery, hygienic, and convenient chain. This acquisition is Hello Curry attempt to draw a sustainable revenue model for the long term, even as its 33 outlets in Hyderabad, Pune, and Bengaluru remain profitable.

The company is in the process of raising $2-3 Million to take care of the regular growth plan in India and would separately raise funds for overseas expansion in a few months. The First Meal has a subscription platform and through their meal box concept it provides nutritious and consciously prepared food. Subscriptions can be profitable as the business as the business is predictable and Hello Curry would only leverage the existing kitchens and infrastructure it has to reach the subscription customers.

Through First Meal, the company aims to sell 5,000 meals every day, within the next six months. Currently First Meal serves five types of diet balanced breakfast items and daily changing nutritious lunches, tapping around 10,000 boxes a month, with 89% customer retention rate.

LogiNext acquires delivery portal YourGuy

Logistics and software company LogiNext has acquired YourGuy; a Mumbai based cross category last mile delivery startup. The acquisition is aligned for strengthening and expanding LogiNext last mile delivery platform Sprintr, launched last week.

Logistics management system Sprintr is a technology driven platform to both clients and delivery partners. Aggregating delivery capacity through providing technology to delivery companies, clients can now just push orders and delivery requests through the same software across India. This enables the big businesses to get their delivery sorted, while giving a business to their delivery partners free of cost.

The Sprintr platform has an active network of 250 delivery personnel on ground; the platform is managing close to over 5000 deliveries daily. Sprintr is currently operational in Gurgaon, Mumbai, Jaipur, and Ahmedabad, handling both pre-scheduled and on-demand orders. Founded in 2014, YourGuy is valued at $1.5 Million, while processing 4,000 deliveries per day, working for clients in segments including pharmaceuticals, documents, food, retail, laundry, and grocery.

Further, being a B2B delivery portal, it hosts clients like Godrej Nature Basket, iChef, Wellness Forever, Suburban Diagnostics, and several tiffin services. After the acquisition, LogiNext major task would be to upgrade the fixed expense model of YourGuy to an automated model, allowing users to sign up and start delivering automatically.

Freshdesk buys start-up Airwoot

Customer support software maker Freshdesk Inc. has acquired Airwoot, which help companies spot customer queries and complaints on social media that require urgent attention. Customer support on social channels is key for digital businesses and using platforms like Airwoot enables them to predict conversations that may go viral and take action.

Delivering customer support via Social media continues to be a challenge for many companies given the high volume of noise in the medium. Airwoot AI technology provides a powerful platform to power the social engagement centres of the future. Airwoot used by firms such as Snapdeal, Xiaomi Corp., Ola, Paytm, Grofers, Jet Airways, MakeMyTrip and Cleartrip.com will continue as a standalone product.

For Freshdesk, one of India’s most well-funded product start-ups, Airwoot from Memeticlabs Technologies Pvt. Ltd is the fifth acquisition in nine months. Last April, Freshdesk raised $50 Million from investors Tiger Global Management, Accel Partners and Google Capital, bringing its total funding to $90 Million. The company has been successfully integrating start-ups it bought, into its own product portfolio.

In February, Freshdesk rolled out a new product, Hotline.io, its third since its launch in 2011. Hotline.io was built on the back of its December acquisition of Konotor, which helps businesses chat with their consumer inside apps. Previously, Freshdesk has acquired Framebench, a file collaboration platform in February, Frilp, a social recommendation app in October and 1CLICK.io, a video chat platform in August.

CarDekho acquires Help on Wheels

Girnar Software Pvt. Ltd, which runs online auto classifieds portal CarDekho, has acquired roadside assistance firm Help on Wheels Pvt. Ltd, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition comes two weeks after Girnar Software raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Google Capital.

The used car market in India is currently as big as the new car market. The report adds that first time buyers in India are increasingly opting for pre-owned cars. Companies operating in the used car space have been raising funds to compete in one of the fastest growing business verticals. Girnar acquisition will help the company compete against its rival Cartrade.com which raised INR 950 crore in funding led by Singapore based investment firm Temasek and March Capital.

The company had raised $30 Million in 2014 from a group of investors that included Tiger Global, Warburg and Canaan Partners. Help on Wheels was founded in 2014 and has a client base of 50,000. All the employees of Help on Wheels will be absorbed by CarDekho. Girnar Software, which operates other portals, including Zigwheels, Gaadi.com, Pricedekho.com and Bikedekho.com, had raised $50 Million in January 2015 from Hillhouse, Tybourne, and Sequoia Capital.

In the last two years, the company has acquired four other companies – Drishya360, Gaadi.com, Zigwheels and BuyingIQ. Other auto classifieds start-ups include Droom Technology Pvt. Ltd, which raised $16 Million in a round led by Lightbox in July last year and Truebil which raised $500,000 in its first funding round from KAE Capital in June last year.

Alaska Air to buy Virgin America

Alaska Air Group Inc. is nearing a deal to acquire Virgin America Inc. the ninth largest US Airline by passenger traffic, for more than $2 Billion, having outbid JetBlue Airways Corp. The acquisition would herald the first US commercial airline merger since US Airways and American Airlines combined in 2013 to form the world’s largest carrier.

It would boost the size of Alaska Air home market by allowing it to expand into lucrative hubs such as San Francisco and Los Angeles. Alaska Air is set to pay between $56 and $58 per share to acquire Virgin America. California based Virgin America went public in the US stock market in 2014 as an offshoot of London based Virgin Group. Launched as low cost US Airline, it became famous for its mood lighting, comfortable leather seats and media rich inflight entertainment system.

Based in Seattle, Alaska Air and its partner regional Airlines serve more than 100 cities in the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, and Mexico. It has a market capitalization of $10.2 Billion. Virgin America accounts for about 1.5 percent of US Domestic flight capacity, while Alaska Air and its subsidiary Horizon Air account for 5 percent. JetBlue accounts for 6 percent. Mega-mergers in the past decade have reduced the US industry to four top players that control more than 80 percent of the market.

Blackstone to acquire Mphasis

Private Equity player Blackstone has entered into a definitive agreement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise to buy a majority stake in Mphasis. This deal represents the largest acquisition by Blackstone in India. Based on the open offer subscription, the purchase price consideration will vary between Rs 5466 crore and Rs 7071 crore.

HPE also signed a master services agreement with Mphasis, committing business of $990 Million over a period of five years. The Duration of MSA is five years with three automatic renewals of two years each. Also, Mphasis will be included in HPE’s Preferred Provider Program, opening up significant additional revenue opportunities. HPE currently owns 60.5% of Mphasis. Blackstone will pay a purchase price of Rs 430 per share to HPE.

Mphasis has strong domain expertise in banking, financial services, and insurance vertical. Its deep relationship with marquee global consumers has enabled it to deliver growth above the industry average in its direct international segment. The company has an experienced management team who has a clear road map for company growth. With a long term commitment of company largest customer, HPE are confident that Mphasis will scale new heights.

HCL Technologies to buy Geometric Business

HCL Technologies has agreed to buy all of the business done by Mumbai based software firm Geometric Ltd, except a joint venture the latter has with Dassault Systems SA, in a share swap deal valued at $190 Million. The transaction will help HCL, the country fourth largest information technology firm, increase its business in the engineering services space.

Geometric accepted Noida based HCL Technologies offer of a share swap under which its shareholders will get 10 HCL shares for every 43 share they hold in Geometric. HCL will issue a total of 15.64 Million shares. HCL will get about 74% of Geometric total business and expects the transaction to be completed by the end of this year.

Geometric on its part, will merge into 3DPLM software solutions Ltd, its joint venture with Dassault Systems, thereby giving 100% ownership to the French Company. This will help HCL to scale up its offerings and win large deals from engineering companies. For promoters of Geometric, this marks the end of a three decade journey after Godrej set up Geometric in 1984 and incorporated it as an independent firm in 1994.

Upon completion of this merger, HCL Technologies will generate $1.34 Billion from engineering services and become the world’s third largest technology engineering outsourcing company. Geometric has not recorded any growth in revenue over the last two years despite the product engineering space growing at a health space, and for this reason most equity analysts questioned the rationale of the deal.

Flipkart acquires payments start-up PhonePe

E-commerce marketplace Flipkart Ltd has acquired Payments start-up PhonePe Internet Pvt. Ltd. which was launched last December by former Flipkart executives. Flipkart was in talks to acquire a majority stake in the company for an amount between $10 Million and $20 Million. The PhonePe team will join Flipkart but will function as an independent business unit.

Payments have been one of the biggest hurdles for mass adoption of online shopping in India. UPI has the potential of transforming the entire payments ecosystem in the country. The acquisition of PhonePe is in line with Flipkart focus on driving innovation on the payments front. PhonePe is Flipkart third acquisition in payments, after it bought payments start-up NGPay in 2014 and FX Mart Pvt. Ltd which owns a prepaid wallet license.

PhonePe hasn’t launched a product but is working on a payments solution around the Unified Payments Interface an initiative of the National Payments Corp. of India, which will allow fund transfer between banks and will make inter-operability between banks and instant payments possible by using a single identifier like the Aadhaar number or a virtual address.

The UPI is part of a set of government programmes and technologies, together called India Stack that companies use to slash costs in offline authentication and provide services legally approved by the government to anyone with a mobile phone. The UPI is set to be formally launched in April. PhonePe mission is to significantly improve the online and offline digital payments experience for Millions of Indian customers.