Cognizant acquires Idea Couture

Cognizant had acquired Idea Couture, a privately held firm that offers a broad range of digital innovation, strategy, design and technology services. Based in Toronto, and with offices in Europe, US and Latin America, the firm has more than 170 social scientists, strategists, anthropologists, user experience experts, designers and connected product developers who serve leading companies across multiple industries including Samsung, PepsiCo, Cox, Citi Ventures, Kroger, ConAgra Foods and others.

New generation of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, mobility, business analytics, cloud services and the Internet of Things are disrupting every industry. Enterprises are looking to understand and apply these next generation technologies to front office customer experience, middle office business process and back office IT Systems, reshaping how they interact with customers, employees, partners and others in the digital economy.

Idea Couture will become a part of Cognizant digital works, specializes in designing and prototyping products, services and business models that take advantage of the latest technologies. To help clients succeed in this new economy, Cognizant digital works brings together human insight, strategy, design, technology and industry expertise to create innovative solutions at enterprise scale.

Quikr acquires Hiree

Online classified company Quikr India Pvt. Ltd has acquired Bengaluru based online recruitment platform Hiree (Abhiman Technologies Pvt. Ltd) for an undisclosed amount in an attempt to bolster its job listings business, Quikr Jobs.

Following the acquisition, Hiree will merge with Quikr and the Hiree team will be adsorbed into Quikr. The combined entity will have more than 4 Million active jobseekers. Hiree was founded in May 2013 and connected potential jobseekers serving notice periods with prospective employers in an attempt to fast track the recruitment process by enlisting active jobseekers.

In May 2015, the company rebranded itself as Hiree and allowed listings by all categories of jobseekers in an attempt to increase its target audience. The company had raised INR 20 crore from IDG Ventures and a clutch of angel investors. However, the company had a bumpy ride as overall hiring, especially by startups, slowed down after startups scaled back to conserve cash and started focusing on streamlining their operations with the existing workforce following a slowdown in investments.

As a classified portal, Quikr has just one rival, OLX, which is backed by Naspers Ltd, a South African mass media company. Tiger Global Management backed Quikr which has so far raised about $346 Million from venture capital firms has been investing aggressively to build these verticals by both acquiring companies and making strategic investments. In May, Quikr acquired Gurgaon based home beauty services provider Salosa for an undisclosed amount to bolster its home services business.

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.

Flipkart’s Myntra acquires Jabong

Flipkart Ltd has acquired Jabong through its unit Myntra in a cut-price deal that values the online fashion store at $70 Million, moving to preserve its position as India’s No 1 e-commerce marketplace in the face of an onslaught by Amazon India. Jabong had been valued at $508 Million in 2013.

For Flipkart – Myntra, the acquisition of Jabong will boost sales at a time when Flipkart is struggling to revive growth and struggling to protect its leadership in a market where Amazon has made rapid strides. Jabong offers more than 1500 international high street brands, sports labels, Indian ethnic and designer labels and over 15,000 styles from more than 1000 sellers.

In September 2014, German investor Rocket Internet merged Jabong with four other online fashion retailers in Latin America, Russia, the Middle East, South East Asia and Australia to create GFG. GFG, which is jointly owned by Rocket Internet and AB Kinnevik, houses the German e-commerce company’s fashion businesses from emerging countries, including Jabong, Latin America Dafiti, Russia Lamoda, Namshi in the Middle East and Zalora in South East Asia and Australia.

Earlier this month, Jabong expedited its sale process as Kinnevik and Rocket Internet were reluctant to pump more capital into the company in a gloomy e-commerce market. Jabong, which matched larger rival Myntra in sales until early 2014, has ceded market share since then, as Myntra parent Flipkart spent lavishly on advertising and discounts to lure customers.

Verizon buys Yahoo

After a month long bidding process and many layoffs, Yahoo has finally found a buyer. Verizon (which owns AOL, which owns TechCrunch) is officially acquiring Yahoo core business for $4.83 Billion in cash, which includes Yahoo advertising, content, search and mobile activities.

The purchase will boost Verizon AOL Internet business, which it bought last year for $4.4 Billion as it gains access to Yahoo’s ad technology tools, BrightRoll and Flurry and search, mail and messenger assets. Verizon, the No 1 U.S. wireless operator, has in recent years looked to mobile video and advertising for new sources of revenue in an over saturated wireless market. It has also scaled back on its Fios TV and internet service.

Verizon could combine data from AOL and Yahoo users in addition to its more than 100 Million wireless customers to create data to help advertisers specifically target users based on online behavior and preferences. Yahoo will continue as an independent company until the deal receives shareholder and regulatory.

The sale doesn’t include Yahoo’s cash, its shares in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, shares in Yahoo Japan, Yahoo convertible notes, certain minority investments or Yahoo non-core patents. Verizon prevailed over rival bidders for Yahoo, including AT&T Inc. and private equity firm TPG Capital Management LP.

Aditya Birla Fashion Acquires Forever 21

In a $26 Million dollar transaction, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail has become the joint venture partner of US fast fashion major, Forever 21, replacing DLF Brands. The company is acquiring Forever 21 exclusive offline and online rights in the country, including its existing store network.

The apparel company, which currently has 12 stores across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, had been dissatisfied with the pace of growth and consequently opted to team up with ABFRL. The Company had originally planned for 50 stores in five years, in addition to Chandigarh; the US firm is planning stores in other Tier II cities such as Coimbatore and Surat.

While the US firm also has its own e-commerce platform, it currently sells its clothes and accessories through the fashion portal Myntra. The JV between Forever 21 and DLF brands was pitching perfect. Forever 21 was to occupy space at a competitive rent in DLF own malls. But over a period of time, it turned out that DLF malls were not always the most lucrative shopping destinations.

That meant Forever 21 needed to have a different expansion plan, given that competing brands like H&M and GAP are aggressively multiplying store presence. This is the third major brand that DLF Brands has let go. Others include Mango and Sephora. At the moment Mothercare, Sunglass Hut and Claires are the prominent international brands that DLF still has under its umbrella.

Google to buy Moodstocks

Google announced a deal to buy Moodstocks, a French startup behind technology that helps smartphone recognize whatever they are aimed at. Moodstocks caught the US technology giant eye for its work in computer vision and machine learning, as well for accomplishments in enabling smartphones or other mobile devices to recognize images and objects.

Google is among Silicon Valley titans investing in ways to get computers to see and understand the world around them the way people do. Machine learning has been woven into an array of Google offerings, such as its free language translation and photo services. Google and its parent Alphabet are expected to integrate the image search team in the artificial intelligence efforts.

Google Home, about the size of a stout vase, will hit the market later this year and will incorporate new virtual assistant software. When home hits, it will challenge Amazon Echo voice controlled assistants that have proven to be a hit since the Seattle based online retail colossus unveiled them two years ago.

Many Internet companies are exploring the promise of artificial intelligence, for example, smartphone applications that can learn a user’s habits and anticipate searches and requests. Microsoft, Apple and Google have each created their own virtual assistants for users.

Team Lease acquires ASAP Info Systems

Leading staffing company TeamLease services Ltd has acquired Bengaluru based ASAP Info Systems Pvt. Ltd for Rs. 67 crore. The company said the acquisition will help it expand its footprint in the core IT hiring space. ASAP Info Systems has over 1000 associates and 171 core employees.

This transaction creates an opening balance for TeamLease to build an IT staffing business. The acquisition is also in sync with strategy of margin expansion through new product verticals and new client segments. The transaction will be done through TeamLease wholly owned subsidiary, TeamLease staffing Services Private Limited. The transaction will be immediately accretive to TeamLease earnings per share.

TeamLease core business is to provide temporary staffing solutions for companies across sectors. Its clients include Microsoft India, LG Electronics, ICICI Lombard, Bata India and Larsen & Toubro. TeamLease was also the first temporary staffing solutions firm to get listed on the Indian bourses, earlier this year. TeamLease has for long serviced IT Companies for non-IT staffing positions, but now expects ASAP Info Systems to help continue expansion in the space after merging its current offices.

Microsoft acquires Wand Labs

Technology giant Microsoft corp. has acquired a messaging app developer founded by an Indian as the US based software firm aims to strengthen its position in the emerging era of combining the power of human language with advanced machine intelligence.

Microsoft acquired California based Wand Labs, a startup which builds messaging technology for apps, founded in 2013. Wand Labs technology and talent would strengthen Microsoft position in the emerging era of conversational intelligence where they bring together the power of human language with advanced machine intelligence, connecting people to knowledge, information, services and other people in more relevant and natural ways.

The acquisition builds on and extends the power of the Microsoft search Engine Bing, its cloud computing platform Azure, Office 365 and Windows platform to empower developers everywhere. Wand Labs expertise around services mapping, third party developer integration and conversational interfaces makes it a great fit to join the Bing Engineering and platform team.

Microsoft to buy LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion

Microsoft Corp. agreed to buy LinkedIn Corp for $26.2 Billion in its biggest ever deal, combining the software giant fast growing cloud service business with an online network of 433 million professionals. The offer of $196 per share represents a premium of 49.5% to LinkedIn Friday closing price.

Microsoft plans to speed-up monetization of LinkedIn by growing individual and organization subscriptions as well as targeted advertising. Despite the rich premium paid by Microsoft, LinkedIn is selling for well below its peak of more than $270 per share in 2015, but a weak forecast earlier this year sent its shares tumbling and slowing online ad revenue. LinkedIn went public in 2011 at $45.

LinkedIn is the world’s largest and most valuable professional network and continues to build a strong and growing business. Over the past year, the company has launched a new version of its mobile app that has led to increased member engagement, enhanced the LinkedIn newsfeed to deliver better business insights, acquired a leading online learning platform called Lynda.com to enter a new market and rolled out a new version of its recruiter product to its enterprise customers. 

Roadrunnr acquires TinyOwl

Hyperlocal delivery start-up Roadrunnr has acquired Food Ordering firm TinyOwl Technology Pvt. Ltd and has transitioned into a food ordering and delivery platform. It has also rebranded itself is Runnr.

After its acquisition of TinyOwl, the company has decided to reposition itself as a customer centric platform and launched a full integrated app called Runnr which is now available on the iOS and Google play store. Roadrunnr and TinyOwl have common investors in Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners.

Runnr food ordering app is currently live in South Mumbai with over 150 Restaurants. There is no minimum order size and the app offers live tracking of delivery. Roadrunnr may exit the business of delivering products for e-commerce companies and focus on a few select categories such as food, groceries and merchant-to-merchant or first mile deliveries.

The food delivery and takeaway market in India was pegged at $12.8 Million in 2014, however the actual penetration level has been only 0.7%. Around 27% of the 40 Million online shoppers order food online and the takeaway market is four times the delivery market.

HDFC Ergo buys L&T General Insurance

HDFC Ergo General Insurance arm of mortgage lender HDFC has acquired L&T General Insurance for Rs 551 crore, the first such consolidation in India’s crowded general Insurance sector having 27 players. L&T General Insurance reported gross earned premium of Rs 483 crore for the last financial year which puts the deal value at 1.14 times of the GEP.

The combined size and expertise will result in improved cost efficiencies in the merged entity and benefit policy holders and other stakeholders. L&T General Insurance is a wholly owned subsidiary of infrastructure and engineering major Larsen & Toubro. The move marks an exit from the insurance business for the infrastructure behemoth. The company received license to operate general insurance in 2010 and it has not been able to break even since then.

The company is also believed to be in discussion to dilute its holding in its mutual fund business L&T Mutual Fund. L&T General Insurance is among the few companies in the sector without a foreign partner. The Insurance Laws Act of 2015 has allowed FDI up to 49 percent in insurance companies. HDFC Ergo is a joint venture between HDFC and Germany based ERGO Insurance group.

HDFC Ergo, a 51:49 joint venture between housing finance major HDFC and global insurance major ERGO International Germany, is the fourth largest private sector general insurer in India.

Jugnoo acquires SabKuchFresh

On demand auto-rickshaw aggregator Jugnoo has acquired SabKuchFresh for an undisclosed amount to strengthen its recently launched grocery delivery service ‘Fatafat’. The acquisition comes after Chandigarh based Jugnoo raised $10 Million in Series B funding from mobile payments and commerce platform Paytm, Snow Leopard and Rocketship.vc in April.

This is a step towards helping the auto drivers to supplement their livelihood through extra earnings. Jugnoo also intends to create a logistics network for the mass market of India and wants to tap the hyper-local delivery service space through best possible routes. SabKuchFresh, an online store of fruits and vegetables has a tie-up with more than 100 farmers has a strong network of B2B and B2C users.

Jugnoo was launched in November 2014 and its auto-rickshaw aggregation service is now present in 29 cities and has a user base of 120 Million. Jugnoo operates three apps, the auto-rickshaw aggregation service Jugnoo Autos, food delivery service Jugnoo meals and hyperlocal delivery service Jugnoo Fatafat. The company is looking to strengthen its businesses.

Jugnoo had earlier acquired online Taxi booking platform BookMyCab in a cash and stock deal in July last year. The company raised $5 Million in Series A funding from Snow Leopard Technology Ventures and Paytm in July last year, $5.5 Million in a series B 1 round in January this year.

Tech Mahindra to acquire Target Group

IT services and solutions firm Tech Mahindra has agreed to enter into an agreement to acquire Target Group, one of the leading processing platform companies in the UK. The value of acquisition is $164 Million and an adjustment for surplus cash up to GBP 8 Million.

The acquisition catapults Tech Mahindra to one of the top three processors in UK financial services for certain complex lending and investment product categories. It also strengthens Tech Mahindra European presence and adds several new clients. The acquisition will make Tech Mahindra a formidable player in the UK BFSI market with over 50 major financial institutions as clients.

The acquisition is in line with Tech Mahindra strategy of expanding its Fintech capabilities and adding IP and platforms to drive non linearity and play aggressively in the BFSI sector. Headquartered in the UK, Target Group has 740 employees and a client franchise, including leading financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley. Target Group also has a strong pipeline which provides for high earnings visibility and cash flow generation.

Target Group provides BPaaS offerings in the areas of lending and investment products servicing to its clients, on variable pricing models. The combination of proprietary software, strong regulatory compliance practice and domain knowledge is a key differentiator for Target Group. The acquisition will help Tech Mahindra to expand its offerings in the lending, savings and investment and insurance sectors.

Facebook acquires Two Big Ears

Facebook is continuing to devote resources to fine tuning how 3D audio impacts viewer perceptions in virtual reality. The social media giant and Oculus parent company announced they have purchased immersive audio company Two Big Ears and will be making their technology free as a part of their new Facebook 360 Spatial Workshop.

The Edinburg based company, which has been around since 2013, specializes in spatial 3D audio in cinematic and gaming experiences. The company technology focuses largely on how sound plays in 3D spaces and how it interacts with surfaces that surround the viewer. Further progress in building hyper-realistic 3D audio is a major get for Facebook video and the Oculus platform.

Both the Gear VR and Rift support the immersive audio technology and the fact that Facebook is opening up Two Big Ears 3Dception technology for free to developers is a nice move to keep content creators happy. The company previously had two immersive audio products based on solutions for both cinematic VR and gaming. While the cinematic VR product has morphed into the free “Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation”, Two Big Ears will be working with the Oculus team on a way to integrate the gaming software.

Immersive 3D audio is hugely important to high-end virtual reality like that available on the Rift, but it is really even more crucial to the rather rudimentary VR experiences like those that are available on Facebook video right now. With the Two Big Ears purchase, Facebook has made it easier for Developers to make their experiences better and has strengthened the company pull in making the social media site the default hub for immersive VR video content.

Convergys in talks to buy Minacs

Convergys Corp, the US based call centre operator with operations in India, is in advanced talks to buy business process outsourcing (BPO) firm Minacs Ltd in a deal worth $500 Million. Convergys and a clutch of PE investors, including CVC Capital Partners Ltd and HIG Capital Partners had expressed interest in buying Minacs.

Minacs was acquired by the current owners from Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd for $260 Million in 2014. In 2006, TransWorks Information Services Pvt. Ltd a unit of Aditya Birla Nuvo had acquired Canada firm Minacs Worldwide Inc. for about $125 Million. The $3 Billion Convergys provides customer management services in 58 Languages from more than 150 locations across the world. It employs 130,000 people across 31 countries.

Convergys claims to be number one in the US customer management industry with more than half of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies as clients. In India, Convergys is the 10^th largest with operations in Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Hyderabad, Gurgaon and Bengaluru. Minacs could be a right acquisition target for Convergys as it will help to strengthen its position in India, a fast growing outsourcing market.

Quikr buys beauty service provider Salosa

Online classified portal Quikr India Pvt. Ltd has acquired on-demand beauty service provider Salosa, owned by Beawel Tech Pvt. Ltd for an undisclosed amount in a move that will help the Tiger Global Management backed company penetrate deeper into the home services segment.

Salosa, founded in September 2015, currently operates in Gurgaon and parts of Delhi with a team of in-house beauticians. The beauty services market is close to $5 Billion in India and growing, which is evident from the increasing number of requests from Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. On demand beauty service is an important sub-category and Salosa will help bring very real benefits to consumers.

Quikr had earlier committed an investment of INR 250 crore to strengthen its home services vertical. QuikrServices has 250,000 service providers who offer more than 80 services for consumers and has about 100,000 daily customers. Quikr is growing beyond a listing platform to a one-stop shop for used goods by enabling payments on its platform, as well as facilitating logistics.

Quikr is focusing on five key business segments such as automobiles, real estate, jobs, services and customer to customer sales. It has identified a new source of revenue and fends off competition from other revenue capital backed businesses that have emerged in each of these categories. As a classified portal, Quikr has just one rival OLX, which is backed by Naspers Ltd, a South African mass media company.

Knowlarity Communications acquires Smartwards

Cloud telephony start-up Knowlarity Communications Pvt. Ltd has acquired Smartwards Services Pvt. Ltd, a Gurgaon based startup that helps small businesses with loyalty programs.

This is the second acquisition of Knowlarity, which employs about 450 people and has so far raised about $22.5 Million from investors Sequoia Capital and Mayfield Fund since it started in 2009. It earlier bought Unicom Techlabs Pvt. Ltd, another startup in the same space in January 2014, and claims to serve about 15,000 customers in 65 countries.

Knowlarity competitors in the cloud telephony space Exotel Techcom Pvt. Ltd and Ozonetel Systems Pvt. Ltd have also made acquisitions in the last couple of years. Last year, Exotel acquired Voyce, a platform that helps businesses collect customer feedback, as part of its efforts to strengthen its customer service offerings, and voice based social media startup Croak it.

In 2014, Ozonetel acquired the speech recognition business of Yantra Software, a provider of speech and voice technology products and services. Startups that cater to small businesses in India have garnered some investor interest over the last year, with Snapbizz Cloudtech Pvt. Ltd which devises technology for grocery stores, raising $7.2 Million in an investment round led by venture capital firms Jungle Ventures, Taurus Value Creation, Konly Venture and Blume Ventures.

Google acquires start-up Synergyse

Google has acquired a business technology startup founded by an Indian origin entrepreneur as part of its plans to scale training offerings for Google Apps to its customers and customer’s users. It acquired Toronto based Synergyse which was launched in 2013 with an aim to teach users how to use Google Apps.

The Google apps product suite, which includes Gmail, Calendar, Drive and Docs, was built to provide cloud based productivity and communications and is now used by more than two million paying businesses around the world. Synergyse built a virtual coach inside of the Google Apps interface.

With voice and text interactive modules that are searchable by topic within its apps, Synergyse will help users get up to speed quickly including when new features are rolled out. Synergyse will help our customers with the critical task of change management in the enterprise, and bolster the training and support programs.

Snapdeal acquires TargetingMantra

Snapdeal.com, India’s second largest e-commerce company has acquired TargetingMantra (Insightful Pvt. Ltd) Gurugram based marketing and personalization Services Company for an undisclosed amount.

The Targeting Mantra team comes with valuable experience in driving superior customer experience through machine learning. The companies did not disclose the financial details of the transaction. The TargetingMantra team will help in building the customer experience solutions that will personalize shopping experiences for customers.

Founded in March 2013, TargetingMantra specializes in building products for enhancing customer buying experience, increasing conversion rates through intuitive product discovery, recommendations and channel selection. Snapdeal, founded in 2010 has become the biggest local rival to Flipkart. It raised $200 Million from the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and others in February and with this round of investment the company’s valuation has risen to $6.5 Billion.