Zensar Technologies to acquire Keystone Logic

Pune based IT services firm Zensar Technologies would acquire Bangalore based retail technology provider Keystone Logic Solutions and its US subsidiary for Rs 132.4 crore. Zensar, the IT services arm of RPG Group, aims to strengthen its technology solutions to global retail and consumer brands using keystone expertise on omni channel retail order and warehouse management.

The Pune based mid-size software services firm believes this acquisition will help in the overall digital transformation of its clients. Currently, a fourth of Zensar revenue comes from retail and consumer segment. Keystone has built a lot of in-house capabilities in digital technology towards omni channel solutions for retail and consumer clients. This deal will play an important role also because their services do not overlap with Zensar current offerings.

The company is focusing on becoming more digitally relevant with acquisitions in new technology areas as clients are reducing their investments towards traditional technology. This is the second acquisition by the company this fiscal after it bought UK based Foolproof, which provides design and consulting services for customer experience. 

Dentsu Aegis Network acquires Grant Group

Dentsu Aegis Network has entered the Sri Lanka market by acquiring the 59 year old family run integrated advertising Grant Group. In South Asia, Sri Lanka becomes the second market after India where Dentsu Aegis Network has an equity holding.

Established in 1958 by Deshabandu Reggie Candappa also known as the godfather of advertising in Sri Lanka – the Grant Group offers services across creative, media, outdoor, content and public relations. In 1993, it became an associate of Interpublic Group of Companies (ICG) owned advertising agency McCann Erickson. The group currently employs 150 people across seven entities under two main groups: Grant Advertising and Grand Media.

Post-acquisition, Grant Advertising will be rebranded as Dentsu Grant while Grant Media will join Dentsu Aegis global media network brand, Carat. Other Global agency brands within the network will integrate with their local agency counterparts stated a statement. Grant group services over 60 local and international clients including some of Sri Lanka’s largest advertisers including Ceylon Biscuits, Sampath Bank, telecommunication firm Dialog Axiata, dairy company Fonterra and Sri Lanka tea Board among others.

Part of Dentsu Inc., Dentsu Aegis Network is made up of 10 global network brands – Carat, Dentsu, Dentsu Media, iProspect, Isobar, mcgarrybowen, Merkle, MKTG, Posterscope and Vizeum and supported by its specialist/multi-market brands. Headquartered in London, it operates in 145 countries worldwide with more than 38,000 dedicated specialists.

AppWorks acquires BigDrop

Gurgaon based IT servicing and consulting company AppWorks has acquired BigDrop, a custom software development startup which offers solutions to other startups, SMEs and large companies. AppWorks will leverage the capabilities of BigDrop engineers to enhance its capabilities in services, products and digital marketing.

AppWorks, which started as a niche IT servicing and consulting company in 2008, has evolved into a holding company with strong capabilities in building IT solutions especially mobile apps, offering consulting services to MNCs on improving their software engineering practices, upskilling freshers to make them employable, and collaborating with startups to help them launch in the market. It has a development team of 50 engineers.

AppWorks is now becoming a collection of LOBSs – BigDrop, OrganIQ, UpSkill plus a host of startups. The bootstrapped startup had around 25 clients including SoftAge, India Accelerator, Just Rokket and VConnekt. Recent acquihires include ride-sharing startup Lyft acquiring Pune based startup Finite Paths, Ixigo acquiring mobile content sharing app Reach, Online Tyari acquisition photo and video sharing app Pix, and UpGrad acquiring corporate training startup Pyoopil Education Technologies.

Lyft acquires FinitePaths

US based ride hailing services Lyft has acquire Pune based startup FinitePaths for an undisclosed sum as it follow its larger rival Uber in tapping India’s large talent base to solve its global technology problems.

Uber opened its technology development centre in Bengaluru in February 2016, with the mandate to build solutions for the local market which could then be exported to other markets. The company ‘pay-by-cash’ model which was built out of India is now available in several Southeast Asian Markets. Apart from Uber, it’s Southeast Asian rival Grab recently announced its plans to setup a research centre in Bengaluru where it would employ 200 engineers that would largely work on payment technologies.

Similarly Indonesian bike taxi service Go-Jek has acquired three Indian startups – Pianta, C42 Technologies and Codelgnition to shore up talent for its development centre here. The top management of Go-Jek India centre comes from local service Ola which pioneered the ride-hailing market in the country.

IndusInd Bank to buy IL&FS Securities Services

Private sector lender IndusInd Bank will buy IL&FS Securities Services Ltd (ISSL), a subsidiary of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) Ltd, in an all cash deal.

IL&FS Securities Services, incorporated in July 2006, is a capital markets intermediary for professional clearing, depository and custodial services. ISSL Services both retail and institutional clients including over 1,000 brokers, FPIs (foreign portfolio investors) and FIIs (foreign institutional investors).

In the financial year ended March 2016, IL&FS Securities Services had total revenue of Rs 277.6 crore and a profit after tax worth Rs 39 crore. The proposed transaction is conditional on definitive agreements and approvals, including regulatory approvals. The proposed transaction is expected to be made effective within next 3 months and follow up announcements will be made as necessary.

Hewlett Packard acquires Nimble

San Jose based Company Nimble storage has been snapped up by Hewlett Packard Enterprise or $1.09 Billion, making it the latest acquisition of an Indian Tech company by a global giant. NASDAQ listed Nimble Storage builds flash-based storage products and competes with the likes of NetApp and EMC.

California based HPE is the world’s second largest provider of external enterprise storage, with revenue of $656.5 Billion in the fourth quarter of 2016, according to analyst firm IDC. Earlier this year, it acquired hyper converged solution provider SimpliVity, Cloud Cruiser, a consumption based infrastructure analytics and security analytics vendor Niara.

The Nimble Storage deal underlines foreign entities growing interest in technology companies set up by Indians. Over the past six months, the likes of Apple, Nutanix, Intel and Cisco have shopped around for companies with Indian Origin, especially in areas of artificial Intelligence, cloud infrastructure and automation. Cisco recently snapped by AppDynamics, which helps companies monitor application performance for $3.7 Billion.

HPE said the acquisition will give it a full range of flash storage systems for SMB to large enterprise clients and help it better compete in the fast growing all flash storage market. 

Google acquires Kaggle

Technology giant Google has announced the acquisition of Kaggle, a start-up that hosts a number of data scientists, for an undisclosed amount at the Cloud Next 2017 conference. Founded in 2010, Kaggle is home to the world’s largest community of data scientists and machine learning enthusiasts.

More than 8 Lakh data experts use Kaggle to explore, analyze and understand the latest updates in machine learning and data analytics. Kaggle and Google Cloud will continue to support machine learning and deployment services while offering the community the ability to store and query large datasets.

Google must lower the barriers of entry to AI and make it available to the largest community of developers, users and enterprises so that they can apply it to their own unique needs. Making Google Cloud Technology available to Kaggle community will allow us to offer access to powerful infrastructure, scalable training and deployment services and the ability to store and query large data sets.

Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, the two public clouds that are bigger than Google cloud, also offer data sciences services. Google cloud already provides Cloud Machine Learning  Engine, among other managed services for working on data.

Tech Mahindra to buy CJS Solutions Group

Software services firm Tech Mahindra Ltd has signed a definitive agreement to acquire CJS Solutions Group LLC; a US based healthcare information technology consulting company that does business as the HCI Group. The deal values CJS Solutions at an enterprise value of $110 Million.

The HCI Group works with global Tier-I healthcare service providers, primarily in the US and UK. It focuses on providing end-to-end implementation of electronic health record (EHR) and electronic medical record (EMR) software, training and support services. The company also has a presence in Europe, West Asia and Asia-Pacific and employs more than 500 professionals globally.

Healthcare and Life Sciences has been one of the focus areas for Tech Mahindra globally and the acquisition will help in consolidating its position. Healthcare is one of the few sectors globally that is driving adoption of digital technologies. The acquisition will not only position Tech Mahindra as a significant player in the healthcare provider space, but will also provide an opportunity to go deeper in the space via EMR implementation and surrounding services.

In May 2016, Tech Mahindra announced it will acquire UK based Target Group in a deal worth around £120 Million to strengthen its presence in the banking and financial services space. In June, it said it had acquired UK based digital transformation firm BIO Agency Ltd.

CureFit buys Kristys Kitchen

Bangalore based healthcare and fitness start-up CureFit has acquired online health food delivery company, Kristys Kitchen for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock deal. CureFit Healthcare Pvt. Ltd provides services such as fitness advice and medicine deliveries.

Kristys Kitchen is in the segment of preparing and delivery of International healthy food cuisines. Founded in September 2016, the company has a kitchen in Bangalore and claims to be operationally cash positive and servicing over 250 orders a day. Backed by Kalaari Capital, Accel Partners and IDG Ventures, the company had raised $15 Million in Series-A round of funding last year in July. Later in August, CureFit acquired fitness centre brand Cult for $3 Million.

CureFit plans to offer it’s three main planned services – health food subscriptions, Cult Fitness subscriptions and mental wellness offering, focusing on prevention side of healthcare. Healthcare can be broadly divided into prevention and cure. Prevention has four important parts: eating healthy, active lifestyle, mental wellness, regular health check-ups. CureFit will be launching fitness, mental wellness—DIY (do-it-yourself) packs of yoga and meditation and food.