Practo acquires Genii

Online doctor discovery platform Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd. has acquired Mumbai based product outsourcing firm Genii to strengthen its technology infrastructure. The acquisition comes amid Practo gearing up to enter the enterprise segment, with the launch of new products for hospitals and diagnostic centres.

Genii, founded in 2011 had raised $100,000 from angel investors. Practo will look for multiple acquisitions in the next 12 months to accelerate growth. It will look at acquisitions for innovative products and technology, talent and increasing customer base. At present, Practo generates revenue from Practo ray, a doctor facing practice management software sold as subscription based software as a service product.

The company does not charge doctors and patients for listing and booking appointments on its consumer facing platform Practo.com but hosts advertisements from hospitals and clinics on the website. Founded in 2008, Practo has so far raised $34 Million from Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners and InnoVen Capital. Genii, is the second company acquired by Practo. In April, the company had acquired FitHo, a web and app-based fitness management platform, to enter the preventive healthcare segment.

Practo plans to expand to 10 countries across South East Asia, West Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe by the end of the year. The firm claims to have on board about 5000 doctors in Singapore and about 11,000 doctors in Philippines. Other prominent firms in this segment are Lybrate, Ziffi, Qikwell, and Helping Doc. Lybrate Inc. announced that the company has raised $10 Million from Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Partners.

Wipro to acquire Designit

In line with its strategy to equip itself tapping the opportunities in the digital space, Wipro, India’s third largest IT services company will acquire Designit, a Denmark based global strategic design firm for a consideration of around Euro 85 Million. The acquisition is expected to strengthen the capability of Wipro Digital, the digital business unit of the company which it set up in March this year.

Founded in 1991, Designit is considered one of the world’s largest privately held firms with an employee base of around 300 and design studios across nine cities globally. The company which reported revenues of Euro 27 Million provides strategic design, user experience and interaction design services to many global brands in segments such as Healthcare, banking, automotive and retail. Some of its global clientele includes companies such as Cisco, Harman, Brussels Airlines, Vodafone, Jabra, Danske Bank and Telefonica.

With the change in the technology buying behavior by global enterprises, the vendors who were offering traditional IT outsourcing services are seen aggressively looking at newer areas like social, mobility, big data and analytics and cloud wherein they are trying to position themselves as end-to-end digital partners. Strengthening the design capability holds key in these areas as it impacts the consumer experiences in a big way.

Wipro has been one of the most acquisitive IT services companies in India. The company has so far acquired around nine companies through the largest one so has been Infocrossing which it bought in August 2007 for about $600 Million. 

PayPal bought Money Transfer service Xoom

PayPal has made a few significant acquisitions since 2013, including purchasing Paydiant and Braintree. Now, PayPal said it would buy digital money transfer provider Xoom Corp. for $890 Million as it muscles into a growing international remittance market and expand in countries like Mexico, India and China ahead of a spinoff from eBay Inc.

Xoom, which has 1.3 Million customers and a presence in 37 countries, allow users to transfer money via desktop, mobile phones and tablets. The acquisition would allow Xoom to expand into new markets with less execution risk. Xoom will operate as a separate service within PayPal after the completion of the deal.

PayPal faces increasing competition from rivals like Stripe and Square, which is popular with smaller businesses and Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay. Online commerce foe Amazon Inc. is also beginning to explore in store payments. The company is slated to separate from eBay this month and list as an Independent company.

PayPal has been pushing hard into mobile, where customers are more frequently making everyday purchases. The company has touted its peer-to-peer money transferring division Venmo, used primarily by smartphone touting millennial, and earlier this year bought app developer Paydiant.

Marksans Pharma Buys Time-Cap Laboratories

Drug Maker Marksans Pharma had acquired US based Time-Cap Laboratories for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was done through its wholly owned subsidiary Marksans Pharma. With the move, the company is strategically increasing its presence in the US Market, the largest pharmaceutical market in the world.

Marksans is engaged in research and development, manufacturing and marketing of generic drugs. New York based Time-cap manufactures solid dosage generic drugs, including private label over the counter medications, prescriptions drugs and nutritional supplements. Its average annual revenue over the last four years is over $30 Million and it achieved an annual adjusted EBITDA of approx. $4 Million.

The company currently has no debt. The company manufactures over 50 unique products from its New York facility, including tablets, caplets, capsules, and pellets. Time-cap offers Marksans an ideal platform to expand its operation in the US. The strategic acquisition helps Marksans to expand its manufacturing capabilities along with product portfolio and penetration in the US. Shares of Marksans rose over 6% after the company reached an agreement with its bondholders.

Netflix to enter India

Netflix is an American provider of on demand Internet steaming media available to viewers in all of North America, Australia, New Zealand, South America and parts of Europe. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in California. It started its subscription based service in 1999 and by 2009; Netflix was offering a collection of 100,000 titles on DVD and had surpassed 10 Million subscribers.

After Singapore based on demand Internet video provider Hooq launched operations in India, Netflix has confirmed up plans to enter India by 2016. This has sent domestic DTH players into a tizzy with some of the major chalking out strategies to diversify beyond television. Netflix is one of the on demands Internet streaming media companies in the world with around 62 Million subscribers.

More than 40 percent of those users are in the US, a market which has become crowded with HBO Now, Sling TV and Sony entering the content streaming segment. Even Hooq, which lets a user stream and download movies and TV shows in India for Rs 199 per month, is a joint venture between Sing Tel, Warner Bros and Sony pictures Television. With 4G about to become a nationwide reality soon, it is no surprise that Netflix wants to enter the market, which is leading the world in mobile Internet user growth.

Monocept Acquires GetMeFood

Monocept, a Hyderabad based Technology Company focused on developing large scale enterprises cloud, mobile and web solutions, has acquired online food ordering startup GetMeFood for an undisclosed amount. GetMeFood is also based in Hyderabad.

GetMeFood has hyper-local delivery system through which food is delivered from over 250 restaurants across the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad by more than 50 delivery boys. Monocept had in late 2014 launched DinerKonnect, a customer engagement and rewards organizer tool for the restaurant and hospitality industry.

GetMeFood will now help the restaurants in growing their business in both dine-in and online ordering space. In the near future, the company has plans to activate multi-channel order management system through its mobile applications for customers, restaurants and its delivery network. The company plans to partner with more than 1,500 restaurants in the next two months. Currently, it is active in 40 neighborhoods in Hyderabad and eight neighborhoods in Secunderabad. Company will also expand their base into other cities.

Simplilearn acquired Market Motive

Bangalore based Simplilearn solutions Pvt. Ltd., the company behind online education and training destination for professional certification courses Simplilearn.com has acquired Silicon Valley based Digital Marketing Training firm Market Motive for $10 Million (Rs 62 crore). It will also help the company make further inroads in the US market.

The deal augments Simplilearn offerings in the booming digital marketing field with courses in social media marketing, digital advertising, web analytics, and marketing automation. Simplilearn, which raised $15 Million in its third round of funding in April to expand its reach in the US, trained more than 400,000 people and offers 250 courses from advanced cloud computing to Six Sigma and Big Data on its site.

With this acquisition, its offerings will include training and certification in digital marketing with courses web analytics and mobile marketing. California based Market Motive will continue to operate as an independent part of Simplilearn. Market Motive specializes in SEO, web analytics, social media marketing, conversion optimization, mobile marketing, PPC advertising, and content marketing.

In April, Simplilearn had secured $15 Million in series C funding by early stage investor Mayfield, with participation from existing investors Kalaari Capital and Helion Venture Partners. It had also secured $10 Million in a series B round of funding in September 2013 from Helion Venture partners and Kalaari Capital. In August 2012, it had bagged around $2 Million in Series A funding from Kalaari Capital.

Aequs acquires T&K Machine

Aequs Pvt. Ltd., a Karnataka based aerospace component manufacturer, has acquired Paris based aerospace component maker T&K Machine Inc., for an undisclosed amount. It will help Aequs to expand its footprint in North American market. T&K Machine has been supplying machined parts and assemblies to the aerospace industry since 1968 and has a wide range of manufacturing capabilities.

Aequs, founded in 1997 as an engineering services firm called QuEST Global Manufacturing based out of the US, started manufacturing aerospace and defence components in 2006. It has a presence in the aero structures (wings, air frames etc.), aero systems (hydraulic valve actuators etc.) and landing gear segments of aerospace manufacturing, and supplies to all major aerospace and aviation companies.

T&K is a US export control approved facility with 65 employees, which will help Aequs in the North American market. In February, Aequs acquired Bangalore based Simulation Designs, which makes high precision components for spacecraft and satellites, for Rs 6 crore. In November last year, Aequs had announced that it is planning to invest about $100 Million in India and abroad by 2020 to expand its geographical reach, add new capabilities and scale up revenues.

Indian aerospace and defence will grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 13.6% to become a $70 Billion market by 2018, according to Grant Thornton India, a consultancy. Aequs will now offer its global aerospace machining platform over one million hours to Boeing and its tier 1 suppliers across the world. 

Square Yards acquires Realizing.in

Gurgaon headquartered Real Estate advisory and brokerage firm Square Yards Consulting Pvt. Ltd., is set to merge with Real Estate research portal Realizing.in. The move is aimed at capturing 15 per cent market share of India’s Real Estate search market in the next few years. As part of the deal, the entire team of Realizing which is owned by IDW Technology Pvt. Ltd., would join square yards.

The Realizing.in portal would be rechristened as Square yards and the group would continue to build research capabilities under the Realizing brand. The ultimate aim is to evolve Realizing into a big data analytics platform for global real estate. Square yards, which operates a portal by the same name has been evolved in real estate transactions worth $350 Million since starting operations.

Square yards offers solutions for property related needs. It caters to residential projects, hotels projects, student accommodation, and mall development. Square yards had raised $6 Million in a pre-series round of funding from a clutch of unnamed investors in May this year. The company claims to have clocked revenue of Rs 38 crore in its first year of operations. Realizing.in offers services such as city heat maps, carpet area and built up area calculations for property transactions. It also helps users with key property related decision based on automated algorithms.

India’s online property search market has evolved radically over the last few years. The leading companies in this space are Softbank backed Housing, News Corp backed PropTiger and Tiger Global, Accel Partners and Google Capital backed CommonFloor besides the legacy players. Times Internet promoted Magic Bricks, Info Edge 99acres.com and Chennai based India Property. 

Snapdeal acquires Letsgomo Labs

Online marketplace Snapdeal.com had acquired Letsgomo Labs, a mobility solutions company. The move is aimed at strengthening its position in mobile commerce as online consumers in India increasingly choose to shop over their phones. Letsgomo was founded by Manav Kamboj and Vikas Banga. Its 76 member team will join Snapdeal and strengthen the organization mobile technology capabilities.

Letsgomo provides mobile technology solutions, design and strategy, besides consulting businesses in conceptualization of applications and mobile sites to implementation and hosting of the mobile platform. The company also works with leading e-commerce companies to help them strengthen their mobile capabilities.

In April, Snapdeal acquired mobile recharge service Freecharge in one of the biggest ever deals in the country start up domain, making Snapdeal one of the largest mobile commerce companies in India. In May, Snapdeal also announced the acquisition of Hyderabad based mobile technology company Martmobi for an undisclosed amount. The platform will help Snapdeal strengthen its mobile platform for sellers.

Snapdeal, promoted by New Delhi based Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd., currently gets 75% of its total orders via mobile based transactions. Some of the investors in Snapdeal include Ratan Tata, Softbank, Blackrock, and Temasek, eBay Inc., Premji Invest, Intel Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.

BigBasket acquires Delyver

Founded in December 2011, BigBasket is an online grocery store. BigBasket has acquired logistics startup Delyver in a cash and stock transaction to bolster its capacity to deliver fast and compete with agile players in the segment like Grofers, PepperTap and LocalBanya. BigBasket will employ Delyver orders in 90 minutes.

BigBasket is likely to leverage Delyver expertise in hyper local delivery to roll out one hour delivery services in the six cities in which it is present i.e. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi, Pune, and Mumbai. It was a cash and stock deal with 50% of the amount being paid in cash. Delyver will continue to operate as a separate business while Big Basket will deploy its fleet of two-wheelers to facilitate timely delivery.

Delyver will scale to the 50 cities as and when Big Basket enters a new market. Delyver specializes in delivering orders within one hour from stores across categories such as food, vegetables and flowers. It will continue with its existing categories instead of restricting itself to just groceries. The hyper local avenue is witnessing a surge of innovations as more and more players are entering the field.

With technology snowballing or advancing to higher levels, the scope for these players is rendered wide open; the potential of this segment is estimated to be so high that even the big fish in the market have registered themselves to compete. While Amazon India has already made an entry into the Indian market with its Kirana Now, Ola has started its pilot project to deliver groceries.

Livspace acquires Dwll.in

Helion Backed home design and décor start up Livspace has announced the acquisition of Bengaluru based Dwll.in to lead the space. Founded in 2013, Dwll.in is an Indian curated online network of interior designers. This is Livspace second acquisition in less than a month. Towards the end of the March, the company had bought DezignUp, an online design community and marketplace.

As part of the deal, the co-founders of Dwll.in and the core team will join the Livspace family. With this acquisition, Livspace will start building go-to-market strategy for the western region, in addition to expanding across other metros and Tier 1 Cities. Livspace is currently projecting a revenue run rate of more than a $10 Million in months to come.

Livspace is an online shopping destination for home décor and furnishings. Also, it offers facility to hire designers on its platform. Further, the users can customize the products based on their requirements. It delivers in Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Online home décor market in India will touch $20 Billion by 2015.

Out of this $20 Billion market 40% - 50% is furniture and rest are pure home décor items such as Cutlery, kitchen items, fancy lamps etc. Other players in the online furniture space include Urban Ladder, Fab Furnish, HomeLane, CustomerFurnish, Pepperfry etc. Online market place like Snapdeal, Jabong, Homeshop18 etc. also have home décor and furnishing as one of their verticals. 

PVR to acquire DLF DT Cinemas

Realty major DLF plans to sell ‘DT cinemas’ and is in talks with potential buyers including PVR Ltd, as part of its strategy to exit non-core businesses and cut huge debt of over Rs. 20,000 crore. This would be PVRs second attempt to acquire DT Cinemas after 2009, when it entered into definitive agreement with the DLF group.

India currently has 1,700 multiplex screens with PVR leading the market with 454 screens while the second ranked Inox owns 361 screens. DT Cinemas currently operates 29 screens in National capital Region of Delhi and Chandigarh. It will ramp up its operations to 39 screens by 2016. It is one of the significant players in the Delhi and the NCR with 18 screens in Delhi, eight in Gurgaon and another three in Chandigarh.

In December, Carnival acquired Anil Ambani Big Cinemas for an enterprise valuation of a little over Rs 710 crore. Inox Leisure, acquired Delhi based Satyam Cineplexes for nearly Rs 240 crore. Inox expanded its presence to 50 cities, with 91 Multiplexes and 358 screens. Housing development and Infrastructure sold its Multiplex business Broadway Cinemas to Carnival Cinemas, and Mexican Multiplex chain Cinepolis bought Fun Cinemas.

Though DLF Assets are located at prime places and command premium, the deal value is on the higher side in comparison to other deal that included in the recent past, indicating that the space getting more competitive. 

Apple Acquires Coherent Navigation

For many of the largest Silicon Valley Technology companies, location software undergirds numerous applications and features in their products. For Apple, it has been a game of catch up. Recently, Apple confirmed that it had purchased Coherent Navigation, a Bay Area global positioning company, further bolstering Apple location technology and services.

Apple buys smaller technologies companies time to time and generally do not discuss plans. Founded in 2008, Coherent Navigation was a small firm that focused on creating navigation services based on partnerships with companies like Boeing and Iridium, the satellite network operator. It worked on high precision navigation systems, technology that is far stronger than many consumer grade global positioning systems, which are typically accurate to within three to five meters.

It has also worked on autonomous navigation and robotics projects, as well as projects for the defense department. The purchase of Placebase, a small mapping service, in 2009 represented Apple transition to building its own mapping technology. Over the following years, Apple bought a string of companies in much the same vein, including Locationary and Hopstop.

Many of these acquisitions were part of a broader strategy to move away from reliance on Google Maps, Google widely used navigation service. In 2012, Apple released its own mapping service using in house technology as well as some licensed from TomTom, a Dutch digital mapping company.  This replaced Apple old mapping application, which was based on Google Maps.

Askme acquires BestAtLowest.com

Askme.com, the online search, listings and deals portal of Getit Infomedia Pvt. Ltd, has acquired Online groceries start up BestAtLowest.com. With this acquisition, the e-commerce portal and its team of 25 people became a part of Askme. This will work on integrating BestAtLowest.com into askmegroceries.com which will be launched later this year.

Accelity BestAtLowest.com Online services Pvt. Ltd, which runs bestatlowest.com is a marketplace working in the hub and spoke model. It has tied up with retailers and supermarket stores to acquire food and groceries to supply to its hub, which are the delivered across locations. It offers a same day delivery service within 4-6 hours of consumers placing an order in Delhi and the National Capital Region.

This is an acqui-hire, where one acquire a company and get its talent on board to extend or build a new category. In March, Godrej Nature Basket had acquired Ekstop.com, an online groceries portal, and integrated its platform to augment its online delivery and web presence. The brand also offers same day delivery in the five cities it operates.

Online groceries which is not even a per cent of sales of the consumer packaged goods sector, is becoming a fast growing segment. The internet will influence one-third of the total sales in the consumer packaged goods sector in the next five years. Brick and mortar retail in India is expected to grow three times to $180 Billion in 2020 from $60 Billion in 2015. 

Verizon to buy AOL

Verizon Communications is an American broadband and telecommunications company. It was founded as Bell Atlantic and it is the largest US Wireless communication service provider. AOL is an American multinational mass media corporation which develops, grows and invests in brands and websites. The company business spans digital distribution of content, products, and services, which it offers to consumers, publishers, and advertisers.

Recently, Verizon Communication said, it would buy AOL Inc. in a deal valued at about $4.4 Billion to gain access to AOL digital advertising service and content. The deal will see king of mobile phones acquire the one time king of media. Verizon is the largest phone operator in the country, and has growing lines of business offering high speed Internet, as well as business and streaming video services.

But in acquiring AOL, Verizon is buying much more than websites that host streaming content. Along with its video and online advertising technology, AOL owns the Huffington Post, a sprawling collection of international new websites with growing traffic. It also manages a dwindling but profitable dial up Internet business, providing online access for those who live in areas too remote to have broadband or who never canceled their subscriptions.

Verizon with more than 1.5 Billion connected devices has a vast network through which to distribute mobile content. It has been quietly building up its entertainment offerings, but until now has not made any significant acquisitions to bolster its offerings. 

Myntra Buys app developer Native5

Online fashion e-tailer Myntra has acquired Bengaluru based mobile application development platform Native5, a move that goes with its strategy to shift entirely to the mobile platform. Native5 has developed a cloud platform to create and distribute mobile apps across smart phones, tablets and desktops.

Flipkart and Myntra had recently closed down their websites, with the aim of focusing more resources on their mobile apps. There is also speculation that they may close down their desktop websites in the future and go mobile app only, considering they are getting a lot of traction on their apps.

Myntra recently hosted an open Mobile Hack Day’ and had about 160 Internal and External participants from various companies developing hacks around their mobile app. The winning hacks included chat based commerce, real time chat application to buy with friends, an augmented reality shooting game and an app that links all other apps. This shows that Myntra is serious about its ‘app only’ strategy and is looking at all possible angles to provide a better and more complete end to end experience.

Native5 was incubated at Microsoft Accelerator in 2013 and it was a part of the Nasscom 10,000 startup programme the same year. The venture was one of the finalists of Qualcomm QPrize in 2012. Previously, in 2012, Myntra acquired Exclusively, which had a private label brand, and in 2013, it acquired Fitiquette that developed an in-store dressing room experience akin to a virtual fitting room for shoppers to try on clothes online.

Carzonrent Buys Ridingo

Private Equity firm WestBridge Capital backed Carzonrent India Pvt. Ltd, which runs radio cab services besides offering self-drive car rental and fleet management services, has acquired Bangalore based 42 Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which runs a ride sharing app Ridingo for an undisclosed amount.

With the acquisition, Carzonrent expects ride share business to account for 75 per cent of its business in five years. It will continue to see the Ridingo brand name. New Delhi based Carzonrent, which started as a corporate leasing and Cab rental service provider in 2000 also owns Easy Cabs service and MYLES, a self-drive venture. Its car lease division has a fleet of about 2,000 cars and about 135 corporate clients. It is now focusing on the consumer side of business.

The company is backed by WestBridge Capital, BTS Advisors and SIDBI Venture, had together invested about Rs 80 crore for about 32 percent stake in 2012. Ridingo connects car owners to people looking for a ride within the city. At present, it claims over 8,500 registered users in Bangalore and enables over 400 trips per day.

In October last year, Japan Sumitomo Mitsui Auto service Co Ltd and Sumitomo Corporation through their joint venture firm SMAS auto Leasing India Pvt. Ltd, agreed to acquire the auto leasing business of Carzonrent for an undisclosed amount. At a global level, BlaBlaCar competes with Uber, which operates a carpooling service called UberPool in some markets. It is not available in India yet.

Future Retail to merge with Bharti Retail

Kishore Biyani Future Retail Ltd and Bharti Retail Ltd have decided to combine their retail operations to create Rs 15000 crore companies in a move that accelerates the consolidation of India’s organized retail trade. Bharti Retail will get a 10% stake in the combined entity. Future Retail is valued at Rs 5000 crore currently.

The combined company will be demerged into two companies one which will be the front end will retain the name Future Retail and will have 570 stores and a presence in multiple retail formats across 243 cities. The second will be back end, investments and Infrastructure Company and will be listed separately as Future Enterprises Ltd.

Bharti Retail has 203 Easy Day stores currently which generates close to Rs 2000 crore in revenues whereas Future Retail has 300 stores and revenues to close to Rs 13000 crore. Bharti Easy Day retail brand will be retained. Future retail has about Rs 1200 crore debt and Future infrastructure has close to Rs 3500 crore of debt in the books.

The company is looking to have 4000 supermarket or small format stores in India by 2021. Currently it has close to 450 small stores. Shareholders of both Bharti Retail and Future Retail would hold shares in the two new companies. Future retail operates around 350 stores in different parts of the country spread over 11 million feet of retail space. Bharti retail currently operates a network of over stores in multiple formats across 114 cities.

Filipino BPO, Blackstone to acquire Serco India

Private equity giant Blackstone and Filipino BPO Company SPi Global remain in race for buying London listed Serco’s Indian BPO Unit.  The deal is said to be in the range of $400 Million. Formerly known as Intelenet, it had been sold by Blackstone to Serco for $634 Million in 2011. Out of both companies, only one company will win the bid to acquire Serco BPO Unit.

Intelenet was set up in 2000 as a 50-50 venture between HDFC and TCS. In 2004, HDFC acquired TCS stake for 160 crore to sell it to Barclays later. In 2007, Blackstone bought an 80 percent stake in Intelenet for about $260 Million. When it sold Intelenet in 2011, Blackstone had a 66 percent stake and rest was divided among Barclays, HDFC and the management team. Blackstone had managed to get more than a 60 percent return on its four year investment.

Serco had announced the future strategy of the company would be to focus on being a Business to government service provider across five core areas and four key regions. SPi Global, a leading diversified BPO service provider in Philippines operates on offshore based model primarily serving US and Europe Customers with more than 20,000 employees across 17 delivery locations in six countries, including India, US, China, Vietnam, and Nicaragua.

In April 2012, Serco Group had bought all its BPO assets together to create Serco Global Services. Serco BPO operation is largest in India after Genpact and TCS.