French IT services group Atos to buy Syntel

French IT services group Atos has agreed to buy US Information Technology group Syntel in a move to significantly expand its presence in North America. This transaction is a major step in the strategy of Atos to reach a global scale.

Atos, which provides IT services to sectors ranging from aerospace to retail, said the deal to buy Syntel will strengthen its activities in banking, finance, and insurance and allow it to provide complete IT solutions to its U.S. customers.

The deal will significantly enhance the business & platform solutions division's growth and profitability profile through an extended digital services offering, cutting-edge India-based delivery platforms, as well as revenue and cost synergies.

The acquisition of Syntel, a 38-year-old company with 23,000 employees, comes after last year's unsuccessful attempt by Atos to buy Gemalto. Syntel provides technology and IT services utilizing a network of software development centres in India.

SmartQ acquires Goodbox’s cafeteria business

Bengaluru based SmartQ, which provides digital solutions for food courts and cafeterias, has acquired Nexus Venture partners backed Goodbox’s cafeteria business for an undisclosed amount.

SmartQ is operated by YourNest Angel Fund-backed Bottle Lab Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Goodbox provides online shopping platforms to each Bengaluru neighborhood store registered with its app. It also provides food-ordering services in the city. In 2015, Goodbox had raised $2.5 million (Rs 16.5 crore) from Nexus Venture Partners.

The acquisition of cafeteria business comes two months after Goodbox, an app that offered mini apps to a wide range of small and medium-sized businesses within its own app, reportedly turned its focus to neighborhood stores for hyperlocal delivery even as it exited its “non-core businesses.

Goodbox allows businesses to create a storefront on its app, similar to a real-world store. In other words, businesses can create an app for themselves on Goodbox’s platform, where customers can directly interact with the store and conduct transactions. Users also get loyalty and reward points for using the platform.

Oyo acquires AblePlus

Hospitality firm Oyo has acquired AblePlus, the Mumbai based Internet of Things (IoT) startup. Oyo will now be introducing IoT into the basic precincts of their Hotel Management System.

The company also introduced industry-first initiative of Digital Arrival & Departure Register, which has been adopted by the state governments of Haryana and Rajasthan. In addition, Oyo also makes use of Machine Learning (ML) based algorithms to personalize the user journey. Customers will now be able to look at self-check-ins, which will be supported by digital arrival and departure register, self KYP with Aadhaar, and IoT server-managed smart locks.

With the rollout of the added technology enabled operations, Oyo team believes they will be able to track assets across properties better, and also work in reduction of wastage of electricity and minimizing the carbon footprint. This will take OYO a step closer to consolidating its vision of creating beautiful living spaces across India.

The team is also looking at introducing voice-based assistance in rooms, enabling automation of controlling appliances and lights among other services. Going forward, Oyo also plans to implement a comprehensive guest entertainment programme that will include fitness, gaming and augmented experiences. The company is also looking at several other integrated technology solutions including enhancing its Oyo Asset Management offering, so that it is easy to partner with them.

Amazon acquires online pharmacy PillPack

Amazon is buying online Pharmacy PillPack – a move that could disrupt the drug store business. PillPack has pharmacy licenses in all 50 states. The company delivers medications to customers in pre-sorted doses designed to make it easier for people to take multiple medications a day.

Although brick-and-mortar stores might feel the effects of Amazon's competition, the biggest battles will likely be fought by the mail-order pharmacies, which generally serve patients with chronic conditions such as heart disease that may require drugs to control blood pressure, cholesterol and other problems.

Some of the largest mail order pharmacies are controlled by pharmacy benefit managers such as Express Scripts (ESRX.O) and CVS, which offer financial and other incentives to patients to fill their prescriptions with them. PillPack holds pharmacy licenses in all 50 states and is authorized to deliver in 49 states and is an in-network pharmacy for major Medicare Part D plans.

For consumers, it could be good news if the deal nudges the pharmacy sector into a heated competition for customers, potentially driving down drug prices. Prescription drug spending tops $450 billion annually. Amazon's acquisition of PillPack marks another development in the company's rivalry with Walmart, which had been rumored to be weighing an acquisition of PillPack.

Times Internet buys video app MX Player

Times Internet Ltd, the digital business arm of media conglomerate Times Group, is planning to foray into video streaming with the acquisition of South Korea based video platform MX player for Rs 1,000 crore.

The deal marks the biggest acquisition till date by Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd (BCCL), Times Internet’s parent firm, as a group and reflects its bullish outlook on the digital space. BCCL’s earlier big-ticket overseas acquisition – radio network Virgin Radio in 2008.

The platform will house premium and exclusive content from leading content producers and publishers around the world, which means it, will compete with the likes of Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar and Netflix. MX Player claims that its app, which houses a basic video player, has been installed on 500 million devices worldwide. The video player will continue to support the offline video playback features that are currently available.

MX Player is investing in premium, original, digital-first content, with an emphasis on Hindi and regional production. In its first year, the platform will launch with more than 20 original shows, and over 50,000 hours of premium content across all languages.

Symphony to buy Climate Technologies

Symphony Ltd, one of the country’s leading air cooler manufacturers announced to acquire Australia’s Climate Technologies Pvt Ltd. The Ahmedabad-based company has signed an agreement to buy 95% equity stake in Climate Technologies, Australia’s leading manufacturer of cooling and heating appliances.

Climate Technologies, headquartered in Adelaide, South Australia, manufactures and sells evaporative air coolers, ducted gas heaters and other cooling products in Australia and the US. With iconic brands such as Bonaire and Celair, Climate Technologies is one of Australia’s most recognized manufacturers and suppliers of cooling and heating appliances.

It also has a presence in the US markets and has a manufacturing facility in Salisbury, South Australia, with an assembly operation in Las Vegas, Nevada. The acquisition would help Symphony expand its international footprint and would provide it an opportunity of lowering the business risk because of different weather conditions prevailing in India and Australia.

This is an exciting opportunity for Symphony as Climate Technologies is a very strong strategic fit. This acquisition will provide Symphony access to new geographies such as Australia and a strong position in the US, which is the largest air cooler market in the world.

PayPal to buy Simility

Digital Payments platform PayPal Holdings Inc. signed a deal to acquire Palo Alto based Simility Inc., fraud prevention and risk management platform, for $120 Million in cash. The acquisition will allow PayPal to roll out new fraud prevention features to merchants.

Features such as fraudulent payment activity prevention, risk management and transaction verification will soon be introduced on the merchant’s online dashboard. PayPal has been at the forefront of developing innovative fraud prevention and risk management solutions for nearly 20 years and now merchants will be able to configure those solutions to manage the unique complexities of their businesses.

Simility, which was founded in 2014, has raised more than $20 million till date from Accel Partners and California-based investors, including Trinity Ventures and The Valley Fund. It caters to clients in banking and financial services, online marketplaces and classifieds, payment services providers, and e-commerce among others.

PayPal, which had launched its domestic operations in India in November 2017, offers payments products to both consumers and businesses. It also made an investment in Noida-based digital retail payment platform Pine Labs in May this year in a $125 million round.

Cleartrip acquires Flyin

Online Travel agency Cleartrip Pvt. Ltd has acquired Saudi Arabian Travel start-up Flyin for an undisclosed amount.

This is Cleartrip first cross-border acquisition and the Mumbai-based company is looking to step up operations in West Asia’s travel market, which has witnessed the entry of a dozen domestic and international budget operators such as FlyDubai, AirArabia, Pegasus Airlines and others. The company claimed that the combined entity of Cleartrip and Flyin will have a market share of over 60% in West Asia.

Saudi-based Flyin, which was founded in 2008, currently offers bus and flight ticketing and several holiday packages on its online portal. It claims to aggregate more than 320,000 hotels and 450 airlines on its platform. Cleartrip, on the other hand, was founded in 2006, and has been in West Asia for the past five years. It offers air, hotel and stays accommodation, and also aggregates local experiences on its portal.

Cleartrip claims to sell over 10 million flight tickets and 1.5 million hotel room nights annually. Cleartrip last raised an undisclosed round of funding from its existing investors Concur Technologies and Gund Investment, among others in June 2016. In India, online travel is largely led by players such as Cleartrip, Yatra and MakeMyTrip, which merged with Goibibo in 2016.

Paytm buys Cube26

One97 Communications Ltd which owns payments app Paytm announced the acquisition of New Delhi based technology startup Cube26. The acquisition will help the company upgrade user experience over its mobile platform.

Cube26 develops customized Android OS for original equipment manufacturers, and it is currently building a games and apps store by connecting India-based developers directly with smartphone users. The app store also helps developers monetize their content.

Cube26 is backed by Tiger Global Management and Flipkart. It had raised $7.7 million from both investors in 2015. The start-up was founded in 2012. The acquisition comes just days after Paytm claimed to have 120 million monthly active users on its in-app messaging feature called ‘Paytm Inbox’. The company also said that it will focus more on regional content for making its app more popular across small cities and towns.

Paytm had also made two acquisitions in recent months. In December 2017, Paytm acquired Nearbuy and Little, two platforms that focus on local restaurants and commercial establishments. Paytm later merged both entities and made an undisclosed investment into the resultant entity.

Truecaller acquires Chillr

Sweden’s Truecaller started out life as a service that screen calls and messages to weed out spammers. In recent time the company has switched its focus to India, its largest market based on users, adding services that include payments to make it more useful. Now Truecaller is putting even more weight behind its India push after it announced its first acquisition, mobile payment service Chillr.

The vision is to go deeper into mobile payments and associated services to turn Truecaller into a utility that goes beyond just handling messages and calls, particularly payments — a space that WhatsApp is preparing to enter in India. Truecaller doesn’t have WhatsApp - like scale — few companies can match 200 million active users in India, but it did recently disclose that it has 100 million daily active users worldwide, while India is its largest country with 150 million registered users.

Truecaller has raised over $90 million from investors to date. Truecaller has instead raised capital from Swedish investment firm Zenith. Chillr, which offer payment services between over 50 banks, had raised $7.5 million from the likes of Blume Ventures and Sequoia Capital. The development of the service in India has made it look from the outside that the company is splitting into two, a product localized for India and another for the rest of the world.

Outbrain acquires AdNgin

Outbrain, the world’s leading native advertising platform, has acquired AdNgin, a UI Optimization company built to enhance the reader experience. This acquisition is Outbrain’s sixth to date, continuing a string of growth-driven accelerations in the last several years.

Guiding digital discoveries of readers around the globe, Outbrain connects publishers, marketers and consumers through personalized, interest-based recommendations. AdNgin focuses on that same level of personalization, individually optimizing the reader experience based on their visual preferences.

The understanding that every consumer is different — from their personal interests to the way they interact digitally — is what inspired the two companies to come together. Harnessing the combined technologies, performance will continually scale as publishers see higher RPMs (revenue per mile), marketers higher CTRs (click through rate), and readers better overall content interactions.

Microsoft to buy GitHub

Microsoft Corp. reached an agreement to buy GitHub Inc., the code repository company popular with many software developers, for $7.5 Billion in stock. Microsoft expects the deal to close by the end of 2018.

The acquisition provides a way forward for San Francisco-based GitHub, which has been trying for nine months to find a new chief executive officer and has yet to make a profit from its popular service that allows coders to share and collaborate on their work. It also helps Microsoft, which is increasingly relying on open-source software, to add programming tools and tie up with a company that has become a key part of the way Microsoft writes its own software.

San Francisco-based GitHub is an essential tool for coders. Many corporations, including Microsoft and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, use it to store their corporate code and to collaborate. It’s also a social network of sorts for developers. Still, GitHub’s losses have been significant -- it lost $66 million over three quarters in 2016. The company had revenue of $98 million in nine months of 2016.

Microsoft has talked to GitHub, which hosts more than 28 million software developers working on 80 million repositories of code, on and off for a few years. Recently they began talks about a partnership but progressed to discussing an acquisition, according to another person familiar with the situation. GitHub was last valued at $2 billion in 2015, making today’s deal a win for GitHub backers like Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.

Paytm acquires TicketNew parent Orbgen Technologies

Digital payments giant Paytm has acquired Orbgen Technologies Private limited, the entity that operates TicketNew, a Chennai based online ticketing platform. With the acquisition, Paytm is seeking to connect its more than 300 Mn customers to TicketNew partner cinemas and further invest in helping grow their occupancy and revenues.

Paytm claimed that its entertainment arm has increased its online penetration in India by more than 50%. The company has also built a strong business in south India and is working exclusively with iconic single screen theatres and regional multiplex chains including Suresh Productions, V Celluloid, SVC, and Anusri Cinemas among others in the region.

Inc42 had earlier reported that the digital payments giant was inching towards advanced talks with the Alibaba Pictures-owned TicketNew to acquire the company. The value of the deal was pegged at $30 Mn-$40 Mn. Alibaba Pictures, the entertainment arm of Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group, had acquired a majority stake in TicketNew on June 5, 2017, making the acquisition its first outside China in the Internet ticketing industry.

Prior to this, Paytm Entertainment had a ticketing partnership with SPI Cinemas, which owns landmark properties such as Sathyam Cinemas, Le Rêve, and The Cinema, in Chennai, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.

CureFit Healthcare acquires Fitness First

Healthcare and fitness start-up CureFit Healthcare Pvt. Ltd has bought Oaktree Capital backed fitness chain Fitness First to expand its presence in Delhi and enter the lucrative Mumbai market.

CureFit will retain the Fitness First brand and add 10 fitness centres to bring its overall centre count to 50 fitness outlets. The firm will sell food subscriptions and its products to users of Fitness First. CureFit currently operates in Bengaluru and NCR.

Fitness First is the latest acquisition for CureFit, which previously bought boutique fitness brands Cult and The Tribe, yoga chain a1000yoga as well as Bengaluru-based kitchen Kristys Kitchen to launch its food business. CureFit was founded in 2016 by Bansal, who was co-founder of fashion retailer Myntra, and Nagori, ex-chief business officer at Flipkart. Bansal and Nagori worked closely at Flipkart after the company bought Myntra in 2014.

CureFit was in talks to raise $75 million from new and existing investors to expand its fitness and food verticals and enter new businesses. The company has so far raised $55 million in equity and debt from Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, Kalaari Capital, UC-RNT Fund and others.

Microsoft acquires Semantic Machines

Microsoft is betting big on Artificial Intelligence. The Redmond, Washington based technology giant announced the acquisition of Semantic Machines, a company focused on building conversational AI. The move could help give Cortana the leg up it needs on competitors like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Semantic has previously worked with major tech firms, leading automatic speech recognition development for Apple’s Siri. In essence, Semantic employs machine learning in order to provide context to chatbot conversations, making dialogue seem a bit more natural and better-flowing.

Microsoft is by no means the only company trying to make strides when it comes to artificial intelligence and its smart assistants. Amazon, for example, is trying to give Alexa a better memory, while Google is making bots so human-esque that they’re practically indistinguishable from humans during phone conversations with its new Duplex offering.

Adobe to acquire Magento

Adobe plans to get into the online shopping business by paying $1.68 Billion for e-commerce Company Magento commerce. Adobe is known for its Photoshop tools. But it’s quickly expanding into other businesses as it looks for new areas of growth.

Companies like Canon and designer Paul Smith use Magento’s technology to operate their online stores. Both Adobe and Magento share similar customers like Warner Music Group, Coca-Cola, and Nestlé, Adobe said. Having similar customers is significant because Adobe can better cross-sell its various tools and services.

Magento, founded in 2007, was acquired for an undisclosed amount by eBay in 2011. A few months after eBay split with digital payment processing company PayPal in 2015, eBay sold its enterprise software unit, including Magento, to investors Sterling Partners and Permira Funds for $925 million. Last year, Magento raised $250 million from Chinese investment firm Hillhouse at a reported private valuation of $700 million.

Salesforce is the 10,000-pound gorilla in this space with revenue across its various clouds reaching more than $8 billion last year. The company is on a run rate to exceed $10 billion in 2018. It has set a long-term company goal to reach $60 billion in annual revenue by 2034.

EarlySalary buys CashCare

Pune based online lender EarlySalary has acquired Mumbai headquartered startup CashCare, which gives consumer loans through non-banking financial companies, for an undisclosed amount.

CashCare analyses a user’s shopping and wallet data to instantly convert online purchases into EMI-based loans without credit card. This is known as checkout finance. The company has partnered 30 companies whose products the user can purchase, such as MakeMyTrip, ShopClues, Byju’s and HP. For financing the loans, it has partnered non-banking financial companies.

Owned and operated by Social Worth Technologies Pvt. Ltd, EarlySalary was founded in 2015. The three-year-old startup offers a mobile app that allows salaried individuals to avail instant loans for an average tenure of 30 days or till the next salary cycle. Users can avail these loans in the form of salary advances or credit card cash withdrawals. The mobile app is available on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

The company claims to be doing about 25,000 loans a month, disbursing about Rs 60 crore monthly. In its most recent fundraising, the Pune-based company raised Rs 100 crore ($15.7 million) in a Series B round led by Eight Roads Ventures India in January. Existing investors IDG Ventures India, Dewan Housing Finance Corp. Ltd. (DHFL) and Ashok Agarwal, director of forex and money transfer services firm Transcorp International Limited, also participated in the round.

Gannett to acquire WordStream

Gannett Co., Inc. has entered into an agreement to acquire WordStream Inc., a provider of cloud-based software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for local and regional businesses and agencies to optimize their digital marketing services campaigns. The transaction builds upon Gannett existing data-driven digital marketing services, ReachLocal and SweetIQ.

WordStream helps thousands of businesses to harness the power of Google, Facebook and Bing by leveraging its discovery and recommendation technologies, intelligent campaign optimization, and online training programs in its cloud-based SaaS solutions. These Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solutions provide businesses and agencies the ability to manage and optimize performance and results on paid search and social advertising campaigns.

WordStream is a proven innovator and delivers a world-class customer experience. Through WordStream, ReachLocal and SweetIQ, Gannett will now be able to provide the full spectrum of digital marketing services from DIY to managed service to any local or regional business or agency.

The market for digital marketing services in the U.S. is over $90 billion and consists of both large and small clients. The addition of WordStream best-in-class DIY SaaS solutions significantly enhances Gannett capabilities and expands addressable market.

Infibeam to buy Snapdeal’s Unicommerce

Ahmedabad based Infibeam Incorporation Ltd will acquire Snapdeal’s subsidiary Unicommerce, which offers e-commerce enablement software, in a deal worth up to Rs 120 crore.

Last year, Snapdeal dumped a $950-million takeover offer from Flipkart, with Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal saying the company will pursue a fresh strategy in the Indian market. As a part of this Snapdeal 2.0 plan, it has sold its payment services unit Freecharge to Axis Bank for Rs385 crore, while its logistics arm—Vulcan Express—was acquired by Kishore Biyani’s Future Supply Chain Solutions in an all-cash deal valued at Rs35 crore.

According to Infibeam’s filing, Unicommerce eSolutions had a net worth of Rs24.63 crore and turnover of Rs20.27 crore as on 31 March. Founded in 2012, Unicommerce offers e-commerce enablement software for warehouse management and omni-channel services and has over 10,000 sellers, brands and online retailers as its clients.

Infibeam operates in e-retailing (Products business) through its flagship website infibeam.com and has Web Services business that covers software development services, web development, maintenance through BuildBazar and access to digital payment gateways amongst others.

Cognizant acquires Hedera Consulting

IT firm Cognizant has acquired privately held Hedera Consulting, a move that will strengthen the former consulting and digital transformation capabilities for clients in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Founded in 2009, Hedera specializes in business advisory and data analytics services across sectors, helping clients in areas like growth strategy, innovation, marketing, sales and customer service. In 2015, Hedera started an additional business line focusing on analytics and data excellence. With offices in Belgium and the Netherlands, the company has served clients across countries including Italy, Switzerland, the Nordics and UK and the Middle East.

By joining forces with Cognizant, Hedera are even better positioned to help clients define their strategy; transform their businesses and gain insight and competitive advantage in their fast-changing, highly competitive marketplaces. Our combined industry and local knowledge and experience, as well as our strong joint team, will better enable our customers in the Belgian and Dutch markets to extract meaning from their data and use it to effectively shape their products, services and experiences.

In the Belgian and Dutch markets, companies are re-designing their business and IT operating models for the digital era. Hedera Consulting expands our ability to help these European clients create agile and digitally transformed enterprises that can act and react to the oceans of data for deeper customer insight, new product development, and to innovate and exploit new business opportunities.