Boss Insights – News – 24th August 2018
Capital Float Acquires Walnut For $30 Mn To Strengthen Its Consumer Lending Business
Pune, India - 21st August 2018 - Amazon and Sequoia India-backed online lending platform Capital Float has acquired personal finance management start-up Walnut, for $30 Million in a cash-and-stock deal. Capital Float intends the acquisition to help strengthen its new consumer-lending business. Walnut’s founders, Patanjali Somayaji and Amit Bhor, will join the leadership team of Capital Float along with their team of 35 employees. Capital Float has raised a total of $117.7 Million in funding rounds. This includes $22 Million from Amazon in a Series C round and $7.2 Million debt investment from Netherlands-based Triodos. In a joint statement, co-founders of Capital Float, Sashank Rishyasringa and Gaurav Hinduja, said, “We’re excited to collaborate with Walnut, an accomplished member of the Fintech ecosystem. Our sensibilities and objectives aligned with theirs, which largely paved the way for our decision to join hands with the company. We were extremely impressed with the team and the product Patan and Amit have built.”
http://www.getwalnut.com/blog/walnut-and-capital-float-a-new-era-in-fintech-begins
Pure Storage Announces Acquisition of StorReduce
Mountain View, CA – 21st August 2018 - Pure Storage, an all-flash storage company that helps innovators build a better world with data, has announced the acquisition of privately-held, Sunnyvale, California-based software company StorReduce, a cloud-first software-defined storage solution for managing large scale unstructured data. The acquisition allows Pure Storage to add sophisticated deduplication technology to its object storage portfolio and expand its public cloud integrations to meet the growing demand to manage unstructured data in multi-cloud environments. StorReduce’s cloud-optimized technology reduces storage and bandwidth costs, enabling flash plus cloud solutions across a variety of use cases, including data tiering, migration, and protection. “We are excited to be joining the Pure Storage team. StorReduce and Pure Storage share a common goal to empower customers to get the most out of their data in the increasingly hybrid cloud world,” said StorReduce CEO Vanessa Wilson.“
https://www.purestorage.com/uk/company/news-and-events/press/storreduce.html
Serviceware Acquires Knowledge Management Company SABIO GmbH
Hamburg, Germany - 17th August 2018 - Serviceware SE, a European provider of software solutions for the Enterprise Service Management (ESM) market, has acquired all shares of SABIO GmbH. SABIO is a provider of knowledge management solutions with a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business model. The acquisition will enhance Serviceware's ESM platform, providing cross-selling opportunities, especially at national and international level, and further accelerate international sales activities. Serviceware customers will now have the opportunity to continue to increase the efficiency of their services whilst significantly reducing their costs. The combination of Serviceware’s existing software and SABIO’s knowledge management capability offers the possibility to further improve service processes by means of artificial intelligence. SABIO’s knowledge management solution will complement the existing digital modules of the Serviceware ESM platform, helpLine (Service Management), anafee (Financial Management) and Careware (Field Service Management).
https://www.getsabio.com/serviceware-se-acquires-sabio-gmbh/
DoorDash Raises Growth Capital, Tripling Valuation to $4 Billion
San Francisco - 16th August 2018 - By any standards, 2018 has been a great year for DoorDash. They have grown 250% YOY, more than tripling their business valuation in the process and becoming the fastest growing last mile logistics company in the US, according to Edison Trends. Since January, their geographic footprint has almost doubled to more than 1,000 cities across the US and Canada, with plans to reach 2,000 cities by year end. On top of the incredible momentum of DoorDash Drive, they also announced, earlier in the year, a national grocery delivery partnership with Walmart - now expanded to nearly 300 stores in 20 states over the last four months. They have also added 250 people to the DoorDash team across the country, and welcomed key executives, including Chief People Officer, Sarah Wagener and Chief Financial Officer, Prabir Adarkar. Capitalizing on this momentum, they have now closed $250 million in a growth round co-led by Coatue Management and DST Global, now valuing the company at $4 billion.
https://blog.doordash.com/
CarDekho acquires YouTube auto content platform PowerDrift
Bangalore – 16th August 2018 - In a bid to expand its play in the content space, Girnar Software Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates auto classified portals CarDekho.com, Gaadi.com, ZigWheels.com and BikeDekho.com, has acquired PowerDrift Studios Private Limited, which operates content platform PowerDrift. PowerDrift hosts video-based automotive content on YouTube with close to 1 million subscribers. PowerDrift marks Girnar Software’s eighth acquisition spanning technology and content. “CarDekho has always innovated and focussed on providing the best user experience. Content plays an extremely important role in that. By bringing PowerDrift on board, we are looking to bring the best in class video content, which will be a visual treat and decision enabler for all stakeholders,” said Amit Jain, Co-founder and CEO of CarDekho.
https://www.cardekho.com/
Open Banking Pioneer Deposit Solutions Closes Investment Round of USD $100 Million - Valuation Exceeds USD $500 Million
Hamburg, Germany – 15th August 2018 - Deposit Solutions, the Open Banking pioneer and international platform for savings deposits, has announced the closing of a new funding round. The round was led by private equity firm, Vitruvian Partners. Vitruvian was joined by Kinnevik and existing shareholders, including Deposit Solutions‘ first institutional shareholder e.ventures, in a transaction worth a total of USD $100 million, valuing the company at USD $500 million. Dr. Tim Sievers, CEO and founder of Deposit Solutions said: “We are delighted to welcome Vitruvian and Kinnevik as new shareholders. They are experts in supporting high-growth companies, which makes them ideal partners for us. Their deep industry expertise and financial firepower will help us achieve our mission of making Open Banking the new standard for the global USD $50 trillion market for savings deposits.”
http://www.deposit-solutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20180815_Press-release-Deposit-Solutions-closes-new-funding-round.pdf
NeoGrowth partners with Paisabazaar.com for SME loans
India - 13th August 2018 - NeoGrowth has partnered with Paidabazaar.com to provide swipe-machine-based or POS-based loans to small and medium scale enterprises. Naveen Kukreja, CEO & Co-founder, Paisabazaar.com said, “We are witnessing a surging demand for quick and hassle-free credit on the Paisabazaar platform, from new-age entrepreneurs. In the last quarter, SME loans have grown by 153% for us. One of the biggest enablers in this have been our digital lending partner, NeoGrowth, who is transforming the SME lending space with game-changing innovations, such as POS-based loans.” Piyush Khaitan, MD & Co-founder, NeoGrowth said, “Our tech and touch model for POS-based loans enables us to accurately analyse the business potential of an enterprise and offer a tailor-made loan. By partnering with Paisabazaar.com, the marketplace leader in the lending space, we aim to further deepen and widen the reach of POS-based loans.”
https://techstory.in/neogrowth-partners-with-paisabazaar-com-2018/
Nordic Capital acquires Macrobond - one of the leading providers of macroeconomic analytical solutions
Malmö, Sweden – 10th August 2018 - Nordic Capital Fund IX has announced its acquisition of Macrobond, a provider of research systems and macroeconomic and financial time series data from primary and third-party sources. Nordic Capital will support Macrobond on its growth journey and will invest to further strengthen the company’s market position. The company’s management team and founders are reinvesting alongside Nordic Capital. This acquisition is the fifth investment by Nordic Capital’s latest fund, Fund IX, and builds on Nordic Capital’s recognised expertise and outstanding track record in the fintech sector. “Nordic Capital is one of the most prominent and experienced investors in the fintech sector in the Nordic region and therefore the ideal partner to continue supporting Macrobond’s growth strategy. With our unique database, tailored access and applications, they will support us as we continue to realise our vision to become the platform of choice for people working in financial and economic research worldwide,” says Tomas Liljeborg, CEO, Macrobond.
https://www.nordiccapital.com/news/nordic-capital-acquires-macrobond-one-of-the-leading-providers-of-macroeconomic-analytical-solutions/
TransIP Acquired IT-Ernity
Leiden, The Netherlands - 10th August 2018 - TransIP Group B.V. has acquired IT-Ernity Holding B.V., the internet solutions provider behind the brands Proserve, CloudVPS, Signet, VDX, Webstekker and DDS. The acquisition creates a market-leading hosting and cloud group in the Benelux and offers many advantages to its customers, who will be able to choose between multiple unmanaged and managed platforms. They will also continue to enjoy reliable support and technology. Additionally, growth of employee numbers, data centres and technical expertise, we ensure TransIP is better placed to meet customer requirements with product updates, new features and more availability zones.
https://www.transip.co.uk/news/archive/
ScanSource Acquires Intelisys
Greenville, SC – 8th August 2016) – ScanSource, Inc, a global provider of technology products and solutions, has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Intelisys Communications, Inc., the a technology services distributor of business telecommunications and cloud services. With 2015 gross commissions of $120 million, Intelisys distributes services for the world’s leading telecom carriers, cable companies, cloud services providers and technology partners through the channel’s top producing sales partners. With the acquisition of Intelisys, ScanSource broadens its capabilities by entering the telecom and cloud services market. In the United States, small and medium-sized businesses spend an estimated $150 billion on telecom services. Craig Schlagbaum, Vice President of Indirect Channels for Comcast Business, said, “This next transformation of the channel is clear evidence of evolving end-user needs, as we begin to see the bundling of hardware and software with network and cloud. As our largest ‘Master Agent’ partner, Intelisys has been instrumental in helping Comcast Business build a scalable channel. With the combined strength of Intelisys and ScanSource, we expect outstanding customer and partner opportunities to result from bridging these two channels.”
http://www.intelisys.com/scansource-announces-agreement-acquire-intelisys-industry-leading-technology-services-distributor/
