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March 08, 2014

Wheelings & Dealings: M&A Week in Review

By Tracey E. Schelmetic, TMCnet Contributor

It’s the end of another week, and it has been an eventful one for mergers, acquisitions, partnerships, and funding. Following are the week’s top stories.

ClickSoftware Technologies Ltd., a provider of automated mobile workforce management and optimization solutions for the service industry, recently completed the acquisition of Xora Inc., a cloud-based market leader in mobile workforce management. The transaction was worth approximately $15 million, including all working capital and net cash adjustments.



The streaming music service Spotify has announced that it has acquired The Echo Nest, a music intelligence services company. Spotify acquired the company to improve recommendations to its users. The economics of streaming music encourage companies to offer music completely customized to a user’s tastes.

ServiceMax, a provider of field service management solutions, has closed on $71 million in Series E financing, the company announced. The funding will be used to scale all areas of the company’s business, including products, sales and global expansion.

Rocket Software, a global software development firm, has acquired Trubiquity. Trubiquity is a global provider of MFT (managed file transfer), process automation and integration solutions for 6,500 companies in the automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, retail, finance, healthcare, and consumer goods industries.

ADDvantage Technologies Group, Inc., a provider of new and used cable television system-critical network equipment and hardware, recently announced that it has completed the acquisition of Nave Communications Company, a provider of quality used telecommunication networking equipment.

Machine-to-machine network specialist KORE this week revealed it has purchased Jazz Wireless Data, which also sells M2M networking services. The dollar value of the all-cash deal was not disclosed.

Shutterstock, the well-known provider of commercial digital images, is planning to acquire WebDAM – in a move that likely will extend Shutterstock’s presence in the large enterprise market. Financial details on the deal were not released, and the deal is expected to close in “coming weeks,” according to a company statement.

Business communication and collaboration solutions provider Mitel has announced that it will acquire call recording and quality monitoring company OAISYS. The acquisition is said to be part of Mitel's strategy to expand the company's presence in the contact center space.

In major news for the IaaS and cloud space, DigitalOcean has scored $37.2 million in Series A funding, led by Andreesen Horowitz. The amount is significant for a first funding round, particularly within the IaaS space, and a vote of confidence in DigitalOcean’s unique IaaS services, which use solid-state drive (SSD) servers exclusively.

IBM has completed its acquisition of privately held database-as-a-service (DBaaS) provider Cloudant, though no figure was announced by the company. Boston-based Cloudant allows its user-base, which is largely made up of developers, to use its cloud platform for storing, analyzing, and distributing data for creating “next generation” mobile and web apps.

Etransmedia Technology Inc., a company that provides integrated cloud-based software and services, recently announced that it has completed the acquisition of Medigistics, an Ohio-based company which provides Revenue Cycle Management and accounts receivable management services to the healthcare industry.

AccountNow, one of the largest prepaid card companies and a trusted brand in providing alternative online banking solutions, has recently acquired www.prepaidwireless.com from Generis Group and www.babblebug.com, a leading provider of long distance, wireless, and point-of-sale services utilizing the latest advancements in online technology, ecommerce, and internet security to deliver high quality, discount prepaid wireless pins via the internet, from Fuze Online, providers of wireless telecom products and services, primarily top-ups for prepaid phones.

Not content with its recent takeover of Time Warner Cable, Comcast (News - Alert) has moved on to another acquisition, albeit a less major one. Specifically, the mass media and communications company is in talks to acquire online advertising platform FreeWheel for about $320 million, according to Mashable.

Westell Technologies Inc., a well-known name to long-time telephony types, this week revealed it has purchased indoor wireless solutions company Cellular Specialties Inc. for $39 million.

Procera Networks, a global Internet intelligence company, and Qwilt (News - Alert), a provider of online video delivery and transparent caching solutions, have entered into a partnership to launch online video delivery and analytics solutions for network operators.

Online services provider Web.com (News - Alert) has acquired SnapNames, a domain auctions platform, from Internet holdings firm KeyDrive S.A., merging the companies’ services for online marketing and domain name auctions.

Reports have emerged suggesting that Intel's plans to get more deeply involved in the wearable device market are about to take on a more tangible form thanks to a rumored new acquisition. While there's no official confirmation on it as yet, the reports suggest that Intel picked up the Basis smartwatch maker in a deal valued somewhere between $100 million and $150 million.

TELUS (News - Alert) Health, provider of tele-homecare, electronic medical and health records, consumer health, benefits management and pharmacy management solutions, has recently increased its presence in Canada by acquiring Med Access Inc. and its EMR business in Canada.

It's not surprising to see that the growth of the online market is still changing things, even long after the Internet went mainstream. With more and more users engaged in the service—a Pew (News - Alert) Research study now notes that 87 percent of adults in the United States count as Internet users—the idea that things we used to do exclusively in the real world get moved to online components just makes sense. Piazza's social Q&A platform is heading in that direction as well with some big help from Khosla Ventures after some major names got involved with Piazza's service roster.

That’s all for this week in Wheelings & Dealings. Enjoy the weekend!



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