WebProNews

Tag: Acquisition

  • Sprint Shareholders Vote to Approve SoftBank Merger

    Sprint Nextel shareholders today voted overwhelmingly to approve the proposed merger of Sprint and SoftBank during a special shareholders meeting. Almost 98% of the votes cast in the meeting, which represent around 80% of Sprint’s common stock, were in favor of the merger.

    “Today is a historic day for our company, and I want to thank our shareholders for approving this transformative merger agreement,” said Dan Hesse, Sprint CEO. “The transaction with SoftBank should enhance Sprint’s long-term value and competitive position by creating a company with greater financial flexibility.”

    The merger will give current Sprint shareholders 22% of the new company, while SoftBank will own around 78%. For each share of common stock Sprint shareholders own, they will have the option to receive either one share of common stock in the new company or $7.65. The merger is still awaiting the approval of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, which Sprint and SoftBank anticipate will be granted by early July.

    Last week, Sprint announced that it is increasing its acquisition offer for Clearwire. The company is now offering $5 per share of the wireless provider, valuing Clearwire at around $14 billion.

  • Sprint Ups Clearwire Acquisition to $5 Per Share

    In December 2012, Sprint Nextel announced that it would acquire the 50% of Clearwire that it did not already own for $2.2 billion. Sprint would pay $2.97 per share of Cleawire, valuing the company at around $10 billion. The acquisition would provide Sprint with a boost in spectrum and help the company keep pace with T-Mobile’s recent acquisition of MetroPCS. Back in May, Sprint upped its offer to $3.20 per share.

    This week, Sprint announced that it will increase its acquisition offer for Clearwire even further, now offering $5 per share of the service provider. The new offer values Clearwire at around $14 billion.

    The increasing offers come as Sprint finds itself in a bidding war between SoftBank and Dish Network. SoftBank first offered just over $20 billion for 70% of Sprint in October 2012, hoping that the merger would give the companies the third-greatest mobile telecom revenue in the world. In April 2013, Dish Network made a bid on Sprint itself, offering $25 billion. Sprint has continued merger talks with both companies, though Softbank is now confident that its latest $21.6 billion offer will stand, after Dish this week failed to make a counter-offer.

    The increased Clearwire offer was made to placate stockholders. In addition to its own shares, Sprint now believes it has the support of 45% of Clearwire stockholders, including Cleawire directors and officers, for the merger. Sprint has also secured a promise from Clearwire to pay $115 million, should the transaction fall through. Clearwire has agreed to hold its annual shareholder meeting as soon as possible to approve the merger. Sprint’s annual shareholder meeting will take place on June 25.

  • LinkedIn Reportedly Buys Pulse For More Than $50 Million

    LinkedIn Reportedly Buys Pulse For More Than $50 Million

    The popular newsreader Pulse brings in 20 million users a day so it stands to reason that somebody would want to acquire such an audience. The only question that remained is who would come out on top in acquisition negotiations. We now may have our answer.

    All Things D reports that LinkedIn will purchase Alphonso Labs, the team behind the Pulse newsreader, for anywhere between $50 to $100 million. The business-minded social network reportedly beat out Microsoft and Yahoo, both of which were also interested in buying it.

    None of this is confirmed as LinkedIn and Alphonso Labs are both remaining silent. We should be hearing something later this week, however, if the deal went ahead smoothly.

    Unlike some acquisitions, I can’t see LinkedIn killing the Pulse newsreader. Instead, it’s more likely that LinkedIn will use the Pulse team’s design skills to redesign its own personalized news feed.

    We’ll continue to watch this story and bring you the official details of the deal when more is known. Until then, just imagine a LinkedIn newsfeed that looks less like this:

    Pulse LinkedIn buy

    and more like this:

    Pulse LinkedIn Buy

  • Samsung Buys NeuroLogica, a Medical Imaging Equipment Manufacturer

    Samsung Buys NeuroLogica, a Medical Imaging Equipment Manufacturer

    Samsung Electronics America this week announced that it has agreed to acquire NeuroLogica, a medical imaging equipment company. The company is most well-known for developing portable CT scanners.

    The price Samsung is paying for the company is unknown, as no details of the sale were disclosed. Samsung did state, however, that the acquisition is a part of the company’s expansion of its medical imaging business. The company has dedicated itself to the nebulous goal of exploring “new avenues of growth in the healthcare business by enhancing medical imaging diagnosis” by the year 2020. From the Samsung statement:

    The acquisition of NeuroLogica is another important step in the expansion of Samsung’s medical imaging business. Samsung will continue to strengthen its capabilities and product portfolio to establish itself as a trusted leader in the health and medical equipment industry. The company plans to leverage its global brand awareness and world-leading technology in consumer electronics, IT and communications with NeuroLogica in order to expand medical imaging business.

    NeuroLogica was founded in 2004 and is based in the Boston, Massachusetts metro area. It designs and manufacturers medical imaging equipment for hospitals and private health practices. Its products include the CereTom and BodyTom portable computed tomography (CT) scanners.

    (Image courtesy NeuroLogica)

  • LinkedIn Competitor Viadeo Acquires “#1 Hunting App” Pealk

    LinkedIn Competitor Viadeo Acquires “#1 Hunting App” Pealk

    Today Viadeo, a professional networking social network similar to LinkedIn, announced it has acquired Pealk, the self-styled “#1 Hunting App” for LinkedIn.

    Pealk was an app designed for HR and managers to cull LinkedIn profiles for potential recruits. It allowed users to sort and track recruits, similar to LinkedIn’s own paid-for headhunting service. Viadeo claims 50 million worldwide users for its service.

    The transaction wouldn’t be particularly worth mentioning if Pealk hadn’t had its LinkedIn API access yanked in the summer of 2012. LinkedIn claimed at the time that Pealk was abusing its API access and violating LinkedIn’s API Terms of Use.

    As the entire Pealk project had been built on LinkedIn, the company promptly discontinued its app after its API access was revoked. For six months no more word was heard of Pealk, and LinkedIn never released details on why it booted Pealk. Though today’s announcement did not include the amount of the purchase price, it is almost certainly less than Pealk’s founders might have hoped for. However, any sale of the languishing company must be better than none at all.

    “We’re very proud and pleased with this buyout, which we consider to be the happy ending to an exciting adventure,” said Boris Golden, Pealk CEO, in a press statement. “It’s also the beginning of a new adventure for us, since there are plenty of applications just waiting to be invented that will give professionals more ways to unlock Viadeo’s full potential!”

  • Lenovo Acquires Cloud Computing Company Stoneware

    Lenovo announced today that it has acquired cloud computing services company Stoneware Inc. Lenovo states that cloud computing solutions are now a key component of its product portfolio. The company expects the acquisition to speed along its offerings, particularly “the ability to provide secure content across multiple devices in education and government.”

    Stoneware is a privately held company that develops cloud computing and classroom management software. It is currently headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana and has 67 employees. The price paid for Stoneware has not been disclosed, but Lenovo did state the acquisition “is not material to Lenovo’s earnings.”

    “Adding Stoneware cloud computing into the Lenovo line up presents a significant opportunity to leverage their success, and enhance our PC Plus offerings, all to the benefit of our customers,“ said Peter Hortensius, president of the product group at Lenovo. “We have a history of innovation and embracing new technologies, and the talented team at Stoneware will fit in perfectly with our long-term strategy.”

    It seems that Lenovo will be focusing on the enterprise side of its business. Along with the acquisition announcement, Lenovo stated that it is “aggressively expanding its product offerings” to people and businesses, specifically emphasizing connectedness across multiple devices. Lenovo expects to leverage Stoneware’s software to help users connect PCs, tablets, and smartphones. The company “aims to offer” secure, end-to end solutions for business customers.

    “We are pleased to be joining forces with Lenovo,” said Rick German, CEO of Stoneware. “Lenovo is one of the largest and fastest growing technology companies in the world and for Stoneware, a small company with roots in the heartland of the United States, we are delighted to be given the opportunity to deliver real benefit to customers on a global stage.”

  • HootSuite Acquires Social Management Startup Seesmic

    HootSuite announced today that it has acquired Seesmic, a competitor in the social marketing management software space. Both companies develop platforms that allow people and businesses to coordinate and monitor their marketing across multiple social network platforms.

    “We’ve always been big fans of Ryan Holmes and the HootSuite team, since the days we were all pioneering the social media landscape.” said Seesmic CEO Loïc Le Meur. “We’re thrilled today to announce that Seesmic is joining HootSuite, and we’re excited for our users: they are becoming part of the HootSuite family, and they will be able to continue to build their brand and social business.”

    HootSuite and Seesmic were founded around the same time in 2008, though it took a year for Seesmic to move into its social network marketing platform development. HootSuite focuses heavily on marketing its services to its business clients, which it says includes 79 of the Fortune 100 companies. Over the past year, HootSuite has added support for many niche and business social platforms.

    “I have always had a lot of respect for Seesmic’s CEO, Loïc Le Meur, and the role Seesmic has played in advancing social business.” said HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes. “We are thrilled to welcome Seesmic’s users into the HootSuite family.”

    Details of the acquisition, including how much HootSuite paid for Seesmic, have not been disclosed. In addition, HootSuite was vague on what the future holds for the Seesmic client. HootSuite did, however, invite Seesmic business customers to subscribe to HootSuite Pro, suggesting that Seesmic may be shut down or rolled into HootSuite in some way. Whatever the case, its clear that HootSuite acquired Seesmic for its talent and clients, not its platform.

  • Twitter Buys App Development Tool Clutch.io

    Clutch.io, a company that provides software to help iOS developers design and test their apps, announced today that it has been acquired by Twitter. On its website, the company describes itself as “an easy to integrate library for native iOS applications designed to help you develop faster and deploy instantly.” In a post on the company’s blog, Clutch announced that its employees are working with Twitter’s growth and international team, starting today. From the blog post:

    We know that there are many of you who love the Clutch Framework and Clutch A/B Testing, and you may be wondering: what happens to my apps? We’re happy to announce that over the coming weeks we will make available everything you need to run Clutch.io on your own servers, so that even after our hosted service is no longer running, you can continue to operate it on your own. We plan on leaving our hosted service active and supported until November 1st. Also remember that all of our libraries are designed to fail gracefully when the service cannot be reached, so your users will never notice a thing.

    As noted above, developers have until the end of October to transition their software away from Clutch.io or begin hosting the service on their own servers. The blog statement ends with a request to follow the two former Clutch developers on Twitter. Eric Florenzano and Eric Maguire both started work at Twitter today. Both were also co-founders of Convore, a now-defunct web chat application funded by Y Combinator.

  • Google Acquires Sparrow To Make Gmail Better

    In Google’s earnings report yesterday, the company mentioned that they would be making smaller acquisitions throughout the year. One of those acquisitions happened today.

    Sparrow, developers of a popular email app for Mac and iOS, was acquired by Google today. Sparrow is already a really cool email application, so it should be interesting to see how Gmail evolves with the acquisition. Sparrow fans will also be happy to know that the software will remain available and they will continue to offer support even while they’re working on new stuff with Google. Unfortunately, both apps will not receive any new features according to Ars Technica.

    The details of the acquisition were not made apparent, but it was probably for at least a few million. If Socialcam can sell for $60 million to Autodesk, you can imagine that Google would pay the equivalent, or more, for an app as popular as Sparrow.

    Sparrow Mail for Mac from domleca on Vimeo.

    Now that Thunderbird is now all but dead, Google has a lot of room to make Gmail one of the most innovative email clients on the Web. Their acquisition of Sparrow seems to confirm their intentions of creating something big. It also makes us think that a Sparrow app for Android might be in the works somewhere down the line. Of course, they could just integrate Sparrow into Gmail for Android at no cost.

    UPDATE:

    We reached out to Google and received the following statement:

    “The Sparrow team has always put their users first by focusing on building a seamlessly simple and intuitive interface for their email client. We look forward to bringing them aboard the Gmail team, where they’ll be working on new projects.”

  • Twitter Could be Acquiring Sense Networks

    The company has given no official word on the matter, but there’s a rumor floating around that Twitter might be interested in acquiring New York-based Sense Networks.

    According to Tech Crunch, the two companies are hammering out the details of a possible acquisition, which could be wrapped up before the end of June.

    Here’s how Sense Networks describes what they deliver for clients:

    Sense Networks applies big science to mobile location data for predictive analytics in advertising. Sense Networks adds rich user behavior to location data to deliver actionable, predictive targeting “beyond place.”

    The company’s technology platform, MacroSense, receives streaming location data from mobile phones in real-time, processes the data in the context of billions of historical data points, and analyzes it to better understand human activity.

    Currently, Sense Network offers two products based on the MacroSense platform. The first is AdMatch, a mobile ad network that uses predictive location and behavioral targeting to match consumers to the most relevant offers from local merchants.

    The second is AudienceSense, which helps publishers better monetize their audience by building predictive, location-centric behavioral segments on their own data.

    Any additional details on the rumored acquisition are hard to come by, but we’ll keep you posted on any further news that comes out of the negotiations. Hopefully we’ll hear something soon.

  • VMware to Acquire DynamicOps, Inc.

    VMware to Acquire DynamicOps, Inc.

    VMware out of PaloAlto, California just announced a definitive agreement to acquire DynamicOps, Inc., a provider of cloud automation solutions and management of IT services across diverse environments.

    While the terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, the acquisition is expected to be complete by the end of the third quarter in 2012.

    Here’s what VMware had to say about the acquisition in the news release on their website:

    VMware believes that customers will benefit most by a standardized architecture, but will build solutions that make it easy for customers to choose the model that best works for their needs, including heterogeneous environments/management. Customers that have standardized their private and public clouds on VMware vSphere can continue to rely on VMware vCloud Director to enable aggregation and management of virtual and cloud resources.

    For customers whose requirements for managing and provisioning resources extend beyond VMware-only environments, DynamicOps builds on the capabilities of vCloud Director by enabling customers to consume multi-cloud resources (e.g., physical environments, Hyper-V- and Xen-based hypervisors, and Amazon EC2). DynamicOps’ policy-based service governor capabilities automate and control how applications and users are provisioned across physical and heterogeneous cloud infrastructure resources.

    Ramin Sayar, vice president and general manager of Virtualization and Cloud Management at VMware comments on the acquisition of DynamicOps:

    “As IT organizations evolve from builders to brokers of services many seek to provide access to diverse cloud resources in a controlled, managed fashion,”

    “DynamicOps’ multi-cloud and multi-platform capabilities help to strengthen VMware’s position as the infrastructure and management vendor of choice for cloud computing.”

    Rich Krueger, CEO of DynamicOps comments on joining the VMware team:

    “VMware and DynamicOps share a common vision for dramatically simplifying the management and provisioning of IT resources in the Cloud era,”

    “I’m excited about DynamicOps joining VMware, and expect our customers to benefit from increased investment and support in the solutions they rely on to optimize their delivery of IT-as-a-service.”

    DynamicOps is privately held company based in Burlington, Massachusetts. It is expected that VMware will integrate DynamicOps’ technologies into their current products and solutions to offer even greater benefits to existing and prospective clients.

  • Apple Supplier Elpida Bought By Micron Technology

    Micron Technology has announced that they have entered into a sponsor agreement to acquire Elpida Memory, Inc. for ¥60 billion ($750 million). Under the agreement Micron assumes all of Elpida’s assets, including its 65% stake in another chip manufacturer, Rexchip. Between the Elpida acquisition and a separate purchase of Powerchip’s 24% stake in Rexchip, Micron gains an 89% stake in Rexchip.

    Of course, Micron also inherits Elpida’s financial troubles. Elpida has struggled badly in recent months, and in February the company filed for bankruptcy protection on the $1.89 billion it had coming due in April. According to Micron’s press release, this acquisition will “enable stable payment of creditor claims and help to streamline approval of the reorganization plan by the creditors and the Tokyo District Court.”

    Elpida is a one of the world’s leading manufacturers of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), and is a major supplier of DRAM chips to Apple. Elpida’s chips go in some of Apple’s most popular products, including the new iPad and the iPhone 4S.

  • Nielsen Acquires Vizu Brand Metrics Measurement Platform

    Today, Nielsen, the ratings and research people, announced they have definitive plans to acquire, Vizu, an online advertising performance meter and optimizer.

    This acquisition is part of Nielsen’s recent commitment to cross-platform advertising measurement.

    Vizu’s unique solutions will be integrated into Nielsen’s growing product portfolio and offer clients real-time feedback on ad exposure and performance.

    Steve Hasker, President of Global Media Products and Advertising Solutions at Nielsen comments on the acquisition of Vizu:

    “We are committed to providing a complete understanding of a brand’s end-to-end advertising campaign impact,”

    “Vizu has developed a best-in-class solution for measuring and optimizing brand advertising effectiveness online, which offers a powerful complement to Nielsen’s cross-platform solutions for the advertising industry. We are pleased to welcome Vizu’s talented team to Nielsen and are excited to work together to further evolve our Brand Effect product suite, and provide unparalleled capabilities to advertisers, publishers and agencies.”

    Dan Beltramo, CEO of Vizu comments on the acquisition by Nielsen Ratings Group:

    “Through quality measurement, publishers and advertisers can harness the power of online advertising and understand its true value in connecting with consumers,”

    “Nielsen is committed to cross-platform measurement and advertising solutions that enable better understanding of the consumer and greater advertising efficiency. We’re confident that combining our advertising technology with Nielsen’s capabilities and expertise creates a stronger proposition for our clients and the industry.”

    Vizu’s capabilities will immediately be incorporated into Nielsen’s product offerings. No financial aspects of the acquisition have been disclosed nor was there a tentative closing date mentioned. It appears Vizu’s staff will now become part of Nielsen’s company and continue on as they had before the acquisition.

  • Salesforce.com Acquires Thinkfuse SaaS Provider

    Salesforce.com Acquires Thinkfuse SaaS Provider

    Thinkfuse announced today that they are being acquired by Salesforce.com.

    Thinkfuse is a software-as-a-service provider that allows organizations to turn business communications into useful planning and scheduling tools.

    While very few details of the acquisition have been disclosed, Thinkfuse will be shutting down by July 25th, and current users will have to export all their data by that time.

    The Thinkfuse team commented about the acquisition on their blog today:

    “Today, we are excited to share that the Thinkfuse team will be joining salesforce.com, where we’ll advance our mission to promote open communication and transparency in the workplace.”

    “To all of our users, thank you for using Thinkfuse! We’ve been on an incredible journey thanks to your comments, feedback, and support. We started Thinkfuse with a simple idea to help teams communicate more effectively. We now have an amazing opportunity to pursue that passion on a much larger scale at salesforce.com – one of the leading companies in the space.”

    Thinkfuse was founded by a group of former Google and Microsoft employees, and first launched at TechCrunch Disrupt New York in 2011. The entire company will join Salesforce.com out in Seattle at their headquarters.

  • Microsoft to Acquire Yammer for $1.2 Billion

    About ten days ago, we reported that Yammer was in talks with Microsoft to discuss terms of an acquisition. While nothing had been confirmed, it certainly looked like the wheels were set in motion.

    Today, we learn that Microsoft is going ahead with a deal to purchase the company for $1.2 billion. Of course, the acquisition is subject to the customary regulatory approval. No date has been mentioned for the closing of the deal.

    Under the current terms of the deal,Yammer will continue to develop its standalone services and maintain a commitment to simplicity, innovation and cross-platform experiences. Microsoft plans to offer Yammer services alongside existing products like SharePoint, Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics and Skype.

    Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft comments on their plans to acquire Yammer:

    “The acquisition of Yammer underscores our commitment to deliver technology that businesses need and people love,”

    “Yammer adds a best-in-class enterprise social networking service to Microsoft’s growing portfolio of complementary cloud services.”

    Yammer CEO David Sacks comments on joining the Microsoft team:

    “When we started Yammer four years ago, we set out to do something big,”

    “We had a vision for how social networking could change the way we work. Joining Microsoft will accelerate that vision and give us access to the technologies, expertise and resources we’ll need to scale and innovate.”

    Yammer brings with them over five million verified customers including members from nearly 85% of the Fortune 500 companies. Yammer will officially be part of the Microsoft Office team, run by division President Kurt DelBene.

  • LivingSocial Not Going Public Anytime Soon

    In light of the totally botched Facebook IPO, it’s no wonder many tech companies are in no hurry to go public.

    According to LivingSocial CEO Tim O’Shaugnessy, you can add LivingSocial to that list. Despite recent losses for the company, they are aren’t hurting for the capital an IPO would bring in.

    LivingSocial was recently able to raise $600 million in venture capital with Amazon controlling nearly 30% of the company.

    While LivingSocial isn’t as popular as their closest competitor, Groupon, they aren’t looking to be acquired either. In fact, they invested heavily last year in ways to diversify and grow their business. Currently, Groupon is holding about 60% share of the daily deals market, and LivingSocial is holding 26%. There’s definitely room for growth.

    The Washington, D.C.-based company is expanding regardless of not finding the diversity it needs to grow in the market. The D.C. City Council, and local business professionals are working on a tax abatement for LivingSocial in order to help them expand their operation within the city and attract more top-level talent to the tech laden area.

    So while it looks like LivingSocial is joining the long list of tech companies totally off-put by the idea of going public, they have no desire to be acquired and continue to advance efforts to grow their business, and diversify their daily deal offerings.

    Facebook aside, LivingSocial need only look at Groupon, their closest competitor, to see going public isn’t necessarily a fast-track to success.

  • Motorola Solutions to Acquire Psion for $200 Million

    Today, Motorola Solutions Inc. announced plans to acquire Psion Plc. for around $200 million in cash.

    The deal is expected to close by the end of the fiscal 2012 year. Under the current agreement, Motorola will offer Psion $1.36 per share, which amounts to approximately $200 million.

    Psion is headquartered in London, but has major operations in Toronto, Canada. They specialize in rugged industrial mobile computing products. They currently have around 830 employees and serve clients in 50 countries. 2011 generated revenues over $270 million for the company.

    Greg Brown, chairman and CEO of Motorola Solutions, comments on the acquisition of Psion:

    “Psion is a compelling opportunity to strengthen our industry-leading, mobile-computing portfolio with ruggedized handheld products and vehicle-mount terminals that will deepen our presence in the global markets in which we compete.”

    John Hawkins, chairman of Psion, comments on joining Motorola Solutions:

    “The Psion directors are pleased to unanimously recommend this offer by Motorola Solutions at a price which offers a significant cash premium to both the current and recent market prices. Psion continues to successfully deliver on its strategy of introducing exciting new products while strictly managing the cost base.”

    “The offer by Motorola Solutions provides Psion’s shareholders with certainty in an environment where certainty is in short supply.”

    Once the deal is complete, Motorola Solutions will integrate Psion within Motorola Solutions’ Enterprise Mobile Computing (EMC) business, reporting to Girish Rishi, corporate vice president of EMC.

  • Salesforce.Com Acquires ChoicePass

    Salesforce.Com Acquires ChoicePass

    Today, ChoicePass, the employee reward site, announced that it is going to be acquired by enterprise solution provider, Salesforce.com.

    There haven’t been any financial details of the deal disclosed at this time, but the ChoicePass website will be shutting down by the end of June.

    Apparently the two companies share the same entrepreneurial spirit and passion for employee recognition. The acquisition will extend the company’s reach and integrate their capabilities into the already broad list of enterprise solutions currently available to Salesforce.com customers.

    Here’s what ChoicePass had to say on their blog site:

    “We started ChoicePass with a vision to change the way organizations reward their employees. Since launching our Perks product, we’ve found that there is massive demand from businesses for innovative ways to manage employee engagement, rewards and incentives. It has been an amazing experience for us to work with such great companies, partners and of course, people.”

    “Today, we’re delighted to announce that the ChoicePass team will be joining salesforce.com. We share the same vision and passion for employee recognition, as well as our entrepreneurial spirit.”

    “We want to thank the ChoicePass community – members, partners, investors, advisors, vendors and merchants – for using and supporting ChoicePass! We have been on an incredible journey thanks to you and look forward to helping companies connect more than ever before with employees across the social enterprise.”

    Earlier this month, Salesforce.com also acquired Buddy Media in an effort to break into the social listening and marketing arena. ChoicePass and Buddy Media are just a few components of Salesforce.com’s increasingly comprehensive business and enterprise solutions portfolio.

  • Sailthru Acquires Seamless Receipts

    Sailthru Acquires Seamless Receipts

    Today, Sailthru announced the acquisition of Seamless Receipts, an electronic receipts specialist.

    Seamless Receipts brings with them extensive experience providing marketing messages, coupons and other loyalty offers from large clients like Oakley, Burton and Tumi.

    Their product and service offers align perfectly with Sailthru’s vision and mission to deliver actionable, relevant and timely messages to customers on a personalized, one-to-one basis.

    Sailthru’s Neil Capel comments on the Seamless Receipts acquisition:

    “Seamless Receipts’ product and vision are well aligned with our mission to help our clients by delivering actionable, relevant and timely messages to their customers on a personalized, one-to-one basis.”

    “Over 35% of our customers exist in the eCommerce space, making Seamless Receipts a natural fit for our company as we continue to expand. Working together, we will continue to provide customers with personalized messaging, empowering more companies to ditch mass marketing for customized communications.”

    Sailthru is currently experiencing 15% month-over-month revenue growth since January and have just relocated their headquarters to SoHo in the New York City area.

    Financial details concerning the acquisition have yet to be revealed, but Seamless Receipts will continue to operate as it always has, only now it will be part of the Sailthru family of brands. The addition is expected to speed the growth of Sailthru.

  • Microsoft May Acquire Yammer Social Network

    Microsoft is in talks with business social networking site, Yammer to discuss an acquisition. Yammer provides enterprise and business customers with all the tools they need to collaborate online.

    The acquisition would allow Microsoft to compete with other providers like Oracle and Salesforce.com.

    The deal would cost Microsoft about $1 billion. Yammer was founded in 2008 by ex-PayPal COO, David Sacks and is based out of San Francisco. Currently, Yammer serves over 200,000 clients including bigwigs like EBay and Ford Motors.

    There is no official word yet from either Microsoft or Yammer, but Bloomberg reports that a deal could come out of the negotiations as soon as tomorrow. We’ll stay on top of things and report back to you as soon as new information becomes available.

  • Constant Contact Acquires SinglePlatform

    Constant Contact Acquires SinglePlatform

    Constant Contact just announced the acquisition of SinglePlatform, a privately owned company focused on business mobile and web discovery.

    The deal closed yesterday and it cost Constant Contact approximately $65 million in cash, but could also yield SinglePlatform an additional $30 million in bonuses if the entity achieves certain financial goals.

    Here’s what Constant Contact said in their press release:

    SinglePlatform gives small business a single place to update their critical business information and delivers that information across a publishing network that reaches more than 200 million consumers per month. This network includes sites like Foursquare, New York Times, YP, and UrbanSpoon, as well as the business’s social media profiles, website, and mobile site. SinglePlatform lets small businesses quickly distribute rich content so that consumers can find it at the very moment they are looking to make a purchase decision.

    The SinglePlatform offering complements the current Constant Contact suite of online engagement marketing tools by helping small businesses reach and engage their next customer even earlier in the customer lifecycle.

    Gail Goodman, CEO of Constant Contact comments on the acquisition of SinglePlatform:

    “There are hundreds of online and mobile sites that consumers use to find local businesses and make purchase decisions. It’s literally impossible for time-starved small businesses to keep up with all of them,”

    “Almost 50 percent of searches for local businesses happen without a specific business in mind so it’s absolutely critical that small businesses are listed everywhere to ensure they are found when and where consumers are looking. SinglePlatform makes that incredibly simple – update your information once, and it’s delivered to all of the important search engines, apps, directories, and review sites.”

    Wiley Cerilli, CEO of SinglePlatform comments on what their platform provides and the acquisition by Constant Contact:

    “The internet is shifting from a listing directory to a discovery engine,”

    “The first step is making sure your listing is available wherever people are searching. The real magic happens when rich business information – menus, product photos, videos – is delivered at the moment that people are making a purchase decision. SinglePlatform’s Digital Storefront is designed to do just that, getting small businesses in front of more people with the type of information that drives new customers and increased sales.”

    “We’re thrilled to have the talented SinglePlatform team join Constant Contact. SinglePlatform is just as passionate about small business success as we have always been,”

    “I look forward to introducing our half a million small business customers to their offering and sharing the benefits of our suite of engagement marketing tools with SinglePlatform’s rapidly growing user base.”

    All of SinglePlatform’s employees will become part of the Constant Contact team, but the company will still conduct business out of its New York City offices. The company is expected to add over $10 million to Constant Contact’s 2013 revenues.