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Celebrating another step ahead for OWNverse 🎉 We're pleased to announce that the Merger Agreement with bowmo, Inc. has been executed ✅ Over the last 6-month long period the OWNverse and bowmo teams have been working side by side, and are now stepping into a new phase of collaboration. Looking forward to further developments! #mergeragreement #companyacquisition #companymerger #ownverse #extendedreality #artificialintelligence #XR #AI #newtechnology #advancedtechnology #softwaredevelopment #hrtech #humanresources

SQREEM Technologies’ acquisition of Trade Indy creates a new, unprecedented offering, making them one of the world’s largest AI Partnership providers. For agencies and clients alike, the #acquisition will allow brands to identify and illustrate their audiences with peak precision, building longer-term digital #relationships, enhancing brand impact and driving budget accountability. CEO of SQREEM Technologies, Ian Chapman Banks, said “As part of our ongoing growth strategy, SQREEM Technologies has grown significantly over the past two years alone, with acquisitions and #partnerships in more than 10 markets globally. Read more - https://lnkd.in/dXWShpgS Catharine Vass Ian Chapman-Banks Richard Achée Melvin Lum Nisha Desai Yu Jing Chia Michael Marks Paula D. Turco Jason Somrock Eugene Yoshioka David Mayo #acquisition #patnership #agencies #clients #growth #strategy #enterpreneurship #artificialintelligence

I like to follow done deals as it helps build data on valuation and understand scale-up strategy. AI is part of the equation in leveraging value too. This is a recent deal in Norway. #ai #scaleup #valuation

Thank you to CX Today for covering Verint's acquisition of Qudini in your article: The 5 Biggest CCaaS Acquisitions of 2023 Having started the company 11 years ago, 2023 was one of our most exciting years as we got to see our software grow within an incredible company. We're very excited about what we have in-store (and online) for 2024! https://lnkd.in/ehPfu94i #customerexperience #contactcenter #tech #uktech #startupecosystem #startups #acquisitions #scaleups #femaleentrepreneurs #femalefounders #femaleentrepreneurs #femalefounded #femaleentrepreneur #femaleentrepreneurship #womeninbusiness #womenentrepreneurs #womenintechnology #careers

Super valuable observations by Martin Mignot on 3 different categories of tech M&A and their pros and cons. In my experience (based on the deals we are involved in with PXR), category 1 (reverse takeover) is probably more of an outlier phenomenon. Category 2 (merger of equals) and 3 ("normal" takeover) deals have happened a lot in Q2/3 2023, the market is a bit more quiet atm, but we expect increased M&A activity in 2024 at least in category 3. However, as asset prices continue to fall and companies see the end of their runway, category 3 deals won't be a walk in the park for many targets. Daniel Grisar

What happens when you combine visual search + computer vision + image recognition? A sweet merger. Based in Philadelphia, Slyce specializes in visual search software. Based in Spain, Catchoom specializes in image recognition and AR. Based in Austria, Humai specializes in part recognition via computer vision. Together, they’ve become Partium. The world leader in identifying spare parts. Combining multiple visual-search techniques… To achieve the highest possible recognition rates. The merger involved: → 90 employees → Multiple locations → A lengthy integration process As part of the Advisory Board Member for Humai in this merger, we were able to retain all 90 employees. The HQ was established in Vienna. And Humai’s CEO Philipp Descovich became CEO of Partium. But this wasn’t a deal that happened overnight. Slyce has had its eye on Humai for about a year. And had been in touch with Catchoom for over 2 years. Humai was already a leader in part recognition before this merger. It goes to show: You need to build something great before attracting a good M&A deal. 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 i5invest: We are a corporate development firm with access to 150K+ top decision-makers in Strategy, Business Development, and M&A. We provide innovative tech founders with insights, expertise, and access to our network to take their companies to the next level. #founders #investors #venturecapital #privateequity #startups #i5invest

Navigating the uncharted waters of innovation and growth requires a blend of courage, resilience and a willingness to embrace the unpredictable. In my conversation with Arman Eshraghi, CEO and founder of Qrvey, we delve into the essence of innovation and the pivotal moments that define a company’s journey from startup to industry leader. Arman’s story and insights offer invaluable lessons on the transformative power of embracing uncertainty as a catalyst for change and growth. Join us as we explore the pathways to success in business. Click the link below. #Analytics #MA #Data #Strategy #Innovation #Acquisitions #MRX

Long frowned upon by boards due to their inherent risk and complexity, M&A are becoming popular again among scale-ups (defined as companies having raised a Series B and above and reached at least $50m in revenue). Many of these companies are in a catch-22 situation: they need to keep growing fast to reach escape velocity and a potential IPO, but are facing both business headwinds and a drier funding landscape. Enter the creative M&A. I’m seeing three different M&A approaches from scale-ups right now: 1️⃣ Private Reverse Mergers (PReMs): Where a smaller, fast-growing, but loss-making private tech company acquires a larger, slow-growing/declining but profitable private incumbent. For a great example of this, I recently wrote about Swile’s PReM approach. 💵 Typical acquisition size: $150m+ (the target is larger than the acquirer by definition) 👍 Pros of this approach: Faster path to liquidity and profitability, reduction in future dilution, better terms for raising debt in the future 👎 Cons of this approach: Windows when all interests and financial conditions are aligned are typically short. The deal also needs some downside protection as well as upside potential for the larger incumbent. Integration can be challenging since scale-ups and larger incumbents tend to have different ways of working 2️⃣ Acquiring another competitive scale-up (Merger of equals) 💵 Typical acquisition size: 50/50 equity merger based on relative valuations 👍 Pros of this approach: The joint company gains immediate revenue scale and a stronger market position. It also sees cost savings because of a shared G&A expense base covered by the now larger revenue base. Best case scenario, it can make the combined entity breakeven or profitable over a short period of time once the integration has been completed 👎 Cons of this approach: In the short term, there are two company burns to manage and integration can become a major distraction, especially as decisions will need to be made about which product to keep, how to migrate customers to a single platform, etc. The new combined entity will likely have to pause most of its roadmap to focus on the integration 3️⃣ Buying smaller startups that never achieved product-market fit or scale but still have a large portion of their funding round untouched (Acquisition for cash) 💵 Typical acquisition size: <$50m 👍 Pros of this approach: Similar to a funding round, since the main rationale is to get cash and the currency being transferred is an equity holding in the acquiring entity. The integration should be much easier than in the first two scenarios as the acquired company’s product and operations will be sunset 👎 Cons: The acquiring company needs to convince investors that backed the target that they’re better-off rolling their stake into the new company — instead of getting their money back I expect to see more companies explore these paths over the coming years. I’ll share an example of a successful PReM below.

I’ve been anticipating more creative M&A stories ever since Swile acquired employee benefits platform Bimpli, a subsidiary of Groupe BPCE in 2023. At the time, I dubbed what Loïc Soubeyrand, Swile’s CEO and Founder, successfully executed a Private Reverse Merger (or PReM). It’s when a smaller, fast-growing but loss-making private tech company acquires a private incumbent that’s larger, slow-growing, but profitable. Sure enough, 2024 has already brought us three new PReM stories. Last week, sennder (Nine years old, Series D company) announced its acquisition of C.H. Robinson’s European Surface Transportation operations (109 years old, global logistics platform). It is set to double the company’s annual revenue from €700m to €1.4bn (so also qualifies as a Merger of Equals) and catapult it to the top five European companies in its industry. Back in February, Cohesity (11 years old, Series F) announced its merger with the data protection business at Veritas Technologies LLC (41 years old, international enterprise) in February to form a new company that will work with 96 of the Fortune 100 and 80% of the Global 500. And in May, computer vision company Metropolis Technologies (7 years old, Series C) announced its acquisition of parking network SP+ (SP Plus). The deal will make Metropolis, originally a software company, the biggest parking network operator in North America. Like Swile, Sennder, Cohesity and Metropolis have accelerated their path to greater scale and profitability with their PReMs, while offering to the incumbent a potential exposure to a growth story trading at higher multiples, creating a win-win scenario for both sides. This approach can also offer scale-ups… ✔️ A faster path to liquidity and a premium valuation as a larger company and possible category leader ✔️ A de-risked business with a reduction in future dilution ✔️ Better terms for raising debt with a profitable business in the future (And by the way, two years after the Swile / BPCE merger, the integration is still going incredibly smoothly. One added benefit that we hadn’t anticipated back then: having the agility of a startup while having the support of a large banking group.) We’re not fully in the clear with private markets and the IPO market is tight, but these companies are more proof that creative M&A should be high on scale-ups’ agendas.

The B2B SaaS industry no longer follows a growth trajectory a VC investor needs to realize their target exit multiple. In oder to find additional funding, many growth companies therefore search for creative M@A opportunities to transfer into the PE domain. Thank you for the illustrative examples I am reposting below, Martin Mignot. These creative M&A deals enable B2B SaaS companies to transition from the venture capital side to the private equity domain of the financial markets. Therefore, an IPO may no longer be a requirement if these newly-combined companies can generate both steady cash-flows and higher than industry standard growth rates. I am sure we will see many more such creative buy & build M&A transactions over the next 18 months as VCs need to provide liquidity to their LPs and PEs need to make use of their dry powder in a world where operational excellence is required and cheap debt no longer available.