Freshdesk acquired Pipemonk

Freshdesk, a cloud based customer service software provider, acquired Pipemonk, a data integration platform that works on the software as-a-service model and allows companies to synchronize and move data among multiple cloud apps quickly and easily. For Freshdesk, the Bengaluru based company is the seventh acquisition in 16 months.

Pipemonk serves more than 400 clients globally. Pipemonk cloud based data Integration platform enables small businesses to automate their data flow across cloud business solutions. When organizations move their current applications to cloud, they often face issues of data getting fragmentation across applications. Pipemonk's solution helps a smooth transition of apps over cloud. 

At Freshdesk, the Pipemonk team will work on strengthening integrations between the Freshdesk suites of products as well as expand third party integrations for each of the Freshdesk products, thus cutting down the need for multiple logins, multiple amounts of data entry, and allowing instant and seamless access to dynamic data across products.

Oracle buys NetSuite

Oracle will acquire NetSuite for about $9.3 Billion, or $109 per share in all cash deal. Both Oracle and NetSuite’s cloud service offerings aimed at enterprise customers will continue to operate and coexist in the marketplace forever.

Eighteen year old NetSuite claims a dominant position in the cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) space, which includes offerings to help businesses track supply and demand, inventory, accounting, customer relationships (CRM) and HR. The ERP industry has been an active space for M&A and general consolidation over the past few years, and Oracle in general has been an aggressive acquirer of smaller companies throughout 2016, with recent pick-ups including Opower and Textura.

Oracle acquisition of NetSuite dwarfs its previous 2016 acquisitions in total deal value, though it still ranks below the all-time leader, PeopleSoft, which Oracle acquired for a heady $10.3 Billion way back in 2004, when such stratospheric values were even more uncommon. While their service offerings are similar, NetSuite offers Oracle access to companies sized smaller than its traditional clientele, and could also give it some additional competitive edge in taking on primary rival Salesforce.

Mindtree to buy Magnet 360

Mid-size IT services firm Mindtree Ltd has inked a definitive agreement to acquire Magnet 360, a Salesforce.com platinum consulting partner, for $50 Million in cash, in a move at addressing the cloud based services market. The deal amount includes an upfront payment of $37 Million and earns out and additional payout of up to $13 Million over the next two years.

With the acquisition of Magnet 360, Mindtree will add more than 100 certified Salesforce experts and help clients digitize back end values chains. This acquisition will strengthen their offerings in digitizing the value chain and building sense and respond systems. Founded in 2008, Magnet 360 specializes in Multi-clouded solutions providing consulting services and implementation, mainly to media/entertainment, manufacturing and finance industries. It is operational mainly in the US.

The company has been a Salesforce partner since 2004. Salesforce, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud and others are trademarks of Salesforce.com. Magnet 360 works with companies across Salesforce solutions such as CRM, branded sites and communities, social campaign strategy and management and marketing automation. Salesforce had invested in Magnet 360 along with StarTec Investments and Gage Group.

The company is headquartered in Minneapolis with Offices in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Its revenue was about $25 Million in calendar year 2015. Bangalore based Mindtree counts Nalanda Capital, Global Technology Ventures and V G Siddhartha led café Coffee Day Group as its shareholders.

Zomato Acquires MaplePOS

Online Restaurant Guide Zomato announced the acquisition of MaplePOS, a cloud based point of sale product for restaurants developed by a group of techies from Delhi. Gurgaon based Zomato has already renamed the MaplePOS product to ‘Zomato Base’. Amount of Deal is not disclosed.

MaplePOS offers restaurants features such as menu and inventory management, and has built in payment solution to accept debit and credit card payments. It counts other Indian Players such as Posist and FusionResto. It offers software to manage menus, inventory, recipes, electronic receipts and a stealth feature which is not disclosed. This is the first product acquisition for Zomato.

Since July 2014, Zomato has acquired seven restaurant search and listing companies in various parts of the world. In February, this year, Zomato launched its Uber like Cashless product in Dubai. The company new buyout is a step forward towards taking an advantage over rival Foodpanda which is also aggressively expanding in its space even as Zomato gears up for launch of food service in India, this month.

The online food services market is valued at over $14 Billion in India and $371 Billion globally and increasing technology is becoming an integral part of servicing the palette. Zomato will work on integrating the POS product service with the consumer product over the next few months, after the integration, Zomato will start offering Zomato base to restaurant business across the world this fall.

8K Miles acquired Mindprint

San Francisco headquartered 8K Miles Software Services, provider of secure cloud solutions, has entered into an asset purchase agreement with Canada based Mindprint, a clinical research software startup, to strengthen its presence in pharmaceutical vertical. India listed 8K Miles, through its US subsidiary 8K Miles software services, has taken over Mindprint which is focused on Analytics and operational software for Clinical Research Organizations and Pharmaceutical sponsors.

This asset purchase agreement includes acquisitions of intellectual property, client contracts and employees. The total consideration in cash and stock, for the acquisition is $400,000. Large enterprises from healthcare, pharmaceutical, financial and insurance markets use cloud offerings from 8K Miles for security and compliance. Mindprint focuses on analytics and operational software for Clinical Research Organizations (CRO) and pharmaceutical firms based in Markham, Ontario (Canada).

Mindprint deep domain knowledge of CRO and pharma outsourcing operations will provide 8K Miles additional competitive advantage to capitalize on the growth potential in the related markets in India and abroad. 8K Miles was founded by Venkatachari. A cloud solutions and managed Services Company, it provides SMAC (social, mobile, analytics, and cloud) solutions for connectivity between consumers, SMBs, enterprises, and government agencies.

Its flagship solution EzIAM provides capabilities for user management, user provisioning and access requests for end users. Four months ago it had acquired SERJ Solutions and FuGen Solutions, which provides electronic health record (EHR) consulting, custom applications, and support solutions for the healthcare market in November 2014, for an undisclosed amount. 

Hewlett Packard acquires Aruba Networks

Hewlett Packard Company is an American Multinational Information Technology corporation. It provides software, hardware, and services to consumers, small and medium sized business and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health, and education sectors. Aruba Networks is a networking vendor selling enterprise wireless LAN and edge access networking equipment. Their core products are access points, mobility controllers, and network management software through their Airwave Management platform product.

Recently, HP acquired Aruba Networks in a deal valued at $2.7 Billion. The deal will expand HP presence in the mobile market, supporting faster speeds and access to cloud applications. Each company’s board of directors has approved the deal. HP has had a dismal record for big acquisitions, having written off multibillion dollar acquisitions of Autonomy and technology outsourcing provider EDS, which it bought in 2008.

HP, which has struggled to adapt to the new era of mobile and online computing, plans to shift into two listed companies this year, separating its computer and printer businesses from its corporate hardware and services operations. Aruba Networks was founded in 2002 and makes the hardware and software used to build Wi-Fi networks for customers. It currently maintains around 1,800 employees and saw revenues of $729 Million in fiscal 2014.

Aruba clients include KFC, University of Miami/University of Miami Health System, and Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Aruba has offices throughout the Americas, Asia-Pacific/Japan and the Europe/Middle East/Africa Regions. The company raised its last series D round back in 2006 from investors such as ARTIS ventures, Trinity Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, and Focus Ventures.  

Infosys Buys Panaya

Infosys is an Indian Multinational corporation that provides business consulting, information technology, software engineering, and outsourcing services. It is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. Panaya is American software as a Service (SaaS) company that provides cloud based quality management services for enterprise applications worldwide. Its services run on the Amazon Product Advertising API.

Infosys announced that it would buy automation technology company Panaya Inc, at an enterprise value of about $200 Million, as the third largest IT Company in the world looks to boost competitiveness and margins. Panaya Technology would help it to bring automation to several service lines through software as a service model, reducing risks, costs, and the time taken to bring services in the market.

For $8.25 Billion turnover Infosys, which has a cash reserve of $5.4 Billion, this is the second largest acquisition after the September 2012 buyout of Switzerland based SAP services company Loadstone Management Consultancy for $345 Million. Infosys is acquiring Panaya at a time when IT services companies are laying greater emphasis on automation as workforce optimization holds key to profitability for the industry which is primarily driven by human resource.

Infosys and its peers TCS, Wipro, and HCL have been deploying automation to enhance delivery to their clients. Infosys has been traditionally shy of acquisition making less than half a dozen buyouts in its existence of over 33 years most of which were small with deal size below $50 Million. Infosys has been making big bets on automation and other new technology like artificial intelligence and cloud based services as the company tries to regain some lost ground from rivals like Tata Consultancy Services.