American Express buys Mezi

American Express Co., the New York based credit card issuer, has acquired chatbots firm Mezi, which enables travel related booking over text messages. Mezi will become a subsidiary of American Express after the transaction is completed.

Mezi was started by entrepreneurs Swapnil Shinde and Snehal Shinde, who had earlier founded music streaming app Dhingana and sold it off to Rdio in March 2014. Nexus Ventures Partners is an early investor in Mezi. It put $2.5 million in December 2015 and a part of the company’s $9-million fund-raise in July 2016, which also saw participation from Saama Capital and American Express Ventures, the strategic investment arm of American Express.

After its investment, American Express tested out Mezi’s chat platform for servicing its card customers through an app called AskAmex, which managed customer loyalty programmes and bookings for hotels and restaurants. By November that year, Mezi has pivoted to focus exclusively on travel.

Mezi app allows travellers to message their requests for flights, hotel and restaurant reservations, and also provides recommendations based on user preferences and past interactions on the platform. Mezi will focus on developing its core technologies and enhance its capabilities in digital travel concierge services.

Future Group to acquire Foodworld Supermarkets

Kishore Biyani’s Future Group is believed to be in advanced talks to acquire Foodworld Supermarkets – a grocery store chain prevalent in South India.

If the deal bears fruit, this will be Future Group's sixth acquisition. In the second half of 2017, the firm acquired Hypercity from K Raheja to have a more prominent presence in the western market. The firm already owns Globus Retail, H&R Johnson and Exide Industries, among others.

The firm, by this strategy of aggressively adding stores, will be able to multiply its revenue to Rs 75,000-1 lakh crore by 2021. Future Retail is currently present in 253 cities through 930 stores. The firm plans to double the Easy Day store count to 1,000 within the next 18 months instead of focusing on expanding its major retail Big Bazaar stores.

Foodworld was earlier a division of Spencer & Co., but later became a separate firm in 1999. As of now, it is owned by the two-year old merged entity, Arko Enterprises and Health & Glow Retailing. Last fiscal term, the grocery retailer posted a Rs 2.3 crore profit, which they gained from 36 grocery stores and 121 Health & Glow cosmetic and beauty stores.

Dentsu Aegis Network acquires DWA and HelloWorld

Dentsu Aegis Network has acquired the global B2B digital media and marketing agency DWA. Established in 1996, DWA is headquartered in San Francisco, with eight additional offices around the world. It has also acquired Detroit based HelloWorld a digital marketing solutions provider, focused on promotion and loyalty solutions.

HelloWorld has developed a differentiated practice that links response-driven consumer promotion with loyalty strategies and program execution. The company operates at the intersection of data, technology, and marketing strategy, enabling marketers to more effectively engage consumers and drive desirable emotional and behavioral response.

HelloWorld creates promotional and gamified campaigns to spark interest, loyalty programs to retain and reward, insights-driven communications to continue the brand-consumer conversation, and analytics to optimize marketing execution. Long-standing clients include Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and Microsoft.

DWA applies expertise in ad-tech, real-time insight, and management decision support to a range of integrated, global media including: Programmatic, Search, Social, and Demand Generation. Its approach has delivered success for a diverse group of enterprise clients, including Sprint, NetApp, Cisco, DXC, Salesforce, Oracle and Informatica.

Arrow Electronics to buy Einfochips

New York Stock Exchange listed Arrow Electronics Inc. has agreed to acquire Ahmedabad based product engineering company Einfochips Ltd. On its successful completion, the acquisition will give Arrow access to Einfochips 1,500 Internet of Things (IoT) solution architects and software development resources.

Arrow Electronics is a global provider of products, services and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions. Shroff, an alumnus of BITS Pilani and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, founded Einfochips in 1994. The company works in the areas of product engineering, device life cycle management, IoT and cloud computing frameworks, intelligent automation and video management.

Before founding Einfochips, Shroff had worked for Intel Corp. and Daisy Systems Corp. in the US. At Intel, he was a part of the 80186 processor design team, and was one of the founding engineers at Daisy Systems. Shroff said that Einfochips was among the first companies in Gujarat to offer employee stock options to its workforce.

Shroff, who is also a trustee at Calorx Foundation that works in the education sector in Gujarat, said his company had created an ecosystem that has moulded more than 5,000 engineers so far and contributed in creating as many as 17 start-ups that have been founded by ex-employees of Einfochips