Analytics Insight presents the top 10 Artificial Intelligence mergers and acquisitions in 2021

The sudden outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has created a drastic effect on all types of businesses since March 2020. There are several Artificial Intelligence mergers and acquisitions that happened or yet to happen within hi-tech companies. The tech giants are always ready to acquire small companies that can help in earning better revenue and customer engagement with new products and services in the global market. This provides a competitive edge for the hi-tech companies in the tech-driven market across the world. Let’s explore the top 10 Artificial Intelligence mergers and acquisitions in 2021 for the welfare of society.

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Microsoft to Acquire RiskIQ

Recently, Microsoft has acquired a leader in global threat intelligence and attack surface management company known as RiskIQ in July 2021. Microsoft requires strengthening the cybersecurity of digital transformation in its hybrid work environment due to the pandemic. RiskIQ has an aim to help its customers detect and access the cybersecurity of the enterprise attack surface and the supply chain. Microsoft is focused on enhancing security tools for defense against multiple cyberattacks in recent times. The Microsoft security portfolio now consists of the attack surface as well as threat intelligence solutions of RiskIQ for better customer satisfaction.

Microsoft Acquires ReFirm Labs

Microsoft is very active in Artificial Intelligence acquisitions for providing better customer service in this tech-driven world in June 2021. The aim of Microsoft is to enhance IoT security and chip-to-cloud protection for the firmware with the help of ReFirm Labs. ReFirm Labs have started enriching firmware analysis and security capabilities from the intelligent edge as well as IoT. This acquisition has brought together top-notch expertise in firmware security and the Centrifuge firmware platform. The customers can easily discover, protect and assess cyber threats at the firmware as well as the network label.

AWS to Acquire Wickr

AWS has acquired Wickr in June 2021 to provide benefits to customers and partners with advanced security features that are not available with traditional communications services. Wickr is an innovative company to brings the industry’s most secure and end-to-end encrypted communication technology in this digital world. AWS required this acquisition due to the hybrid work environment amidst the pandemic. This acquisition will help organizations adapt to the new ecosystem and collaborate more to offer new products and services to customers and partners.

IBM acquired Turbonomic

IBM acquired Turbonomic in June 2021 to drive the future of AI-driven, cross-cloud application operations. The aim of this acquisition is to help customers in application performance and governance for any application hosting platform. Turbonomic is known for its Application Resource Management that provides an application-driven consumption model to assure performance and governance. Meanwhile, IBM is known for its hybrid cross-cloud management software and services.

Pax8 merged with RocketCyber

Pax8 merged with RocketCyber in January 2021 to enable Managed Service Providers for clients through industry-leading tools. Pax8 is known as the best place for IT to purchase Cloud products. It merged with RocketCyber to deliver continuous cybersecurity detection and response efficiently. Pax8 and RocketCyber together have an aim to build technology stacks against the rise of cyberattacks amidst the pandemic.  This merger will provide exceptional security and threat protection solutions to integrate with MSP’s technology stack. The threat intelligence software and threat detection applications enable MSP to deliver risk monitoring continuously.

SentinelOne Acquires Scalyr

SentinelOne acquired Scalyr in February 2021to ingest, correlate, search, and action data from any source by delivering the industry’s most advanced integrated XDR platform. SentinelOne is known as the autonomous cybersecurity platform company and Scalyr is known as a leading cloud-native and cloud-scale data analytics platform. This acquisition is essential for building an effective XDR with the SaaS platform of Scalyr. SentinelOne can provide autonomous protection by creating a real-time data lake for multiple structured and unstructured data.

Google’s WearOS merged with Samsung’s Tizen

Google and Samsung decided to merge their WearOS and Tizen in May 2021to significantly improve battery life and 30% faster loading time with smoother animations. This merger will also help in simplifying the life of developers to create one central smartwatch OS for the Android platform. It will bring a unified wearable platform with more choices for consumers. Developers can add a customized user experience and Android tools to this platform. There will be Google Maps, YoutTube Music app and Spotify integrated into Tizen.

Jamf Acquires Wandera

Being a leader in Apple Enterprise Management, Jamf has acquired Wandera in July 2021. Wandera is a leader in zero-trust cloud security and access and the acquisition will provide help to IT and security teams in protecting smart devices, confidential data as well as applications. Wandera has developed its solutions to generate a technical advantage to customers and Apple-best unified cloud security functionalities are a bonus. It will integrate with Cloud identity providers to ensure the security of the company resources.

Amazon Merged with MGM

Amazon merged with Metro Goldwyn Mayer in May 2021 with US$8.45 billion. Being a popular technology company, Amazon is focused on preserving the heritage of MGM and enhancing customer engagement with a catalog of films. Amazon follows four principles— customer obsession, operational commitment, passion for invention as well as long-term thinking. Amazon is the most customer-centric company with AWS and Artificial Intelligence-based products.

Accenture to Acquire Umlaut

Accenture announced in June 2021, that it has decided to acquire Umlaut to meet the accelerated demand to apply data and digital to design multiple products for leading companies worldwide. It has also expanded Industry X services to allow productivity and growth in core operations. Umlaut is an engineering consulting and services in Germany. This acquisition will add over 4,200 industry-leading engineers and consultants across the world to Industry X services. This will help companies to use digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, 5G, and many more to embed sustainability.

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The year 2020 will be set apart as a phenomenal year in history because of the unfavorable impact of Covid around the world. This pandemic has begun acquiring phenomenal changes in some key areas. The advancements of faster drug development, powerful remote care, productive supply chain, and so forth, will proceed into 2021.

In the midst of the Covid, 2020 was flighty in a bigger number of ways than anybody would have anticipated. Yet, one thing that remained consistent was the consistent progression of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) across the tech sector.

In 2021, mergers and acquisitions are expected. The bigger organizations are probably going to target smaller organizations, concentrated principally in niche and imaginative regions, for example, drug development, cybersecurity, AI chips, cloud computing, MLOps, and so forth.

Let’s look at top artificial intelligence mergers and acquisitions that took place so far in 2021.

Autodesk, Inc. acquired Innovyze, Inc

Autodesk, Inc. has declared it has consented to an authoritative agreement to procure Portland, Oregon-based Innovyze, Inc., a supplier of water infrastructure programming, for $1 billion net of cash subject to working capital and tax closing adjustments. The obtaining positions Autodesk as a leader in end-to-end water infrastructure solutions from design to activities, speeds up Autodesk’s digital twin methodology, and makes a clearer way to a more sustainable and digitized water industry.

Okta to get Auth0 for $6.5B

Okta declared to acquire fellow identity management specialist Auth0 for $6.5 billion in an all-stock arrangement. That cost addresses a critical premium, as Auth0 was last valued at $1.92 billion secretly in the wake of bringing $120 million up in July 2020; that investment was driven by Salesforce Ventures.

Atlassian procures Chartio

Atlassian declared that it’s procuring the famous data visualization tool Chartio for an undisclosed sum. The Australian software-as-a-service organization will hope to join Chartio’s cooperative dashboards and reports into its own analytics tools and to give clients of tools like Jira and Confluence better insight into their information.

Cision secures Brandwatch for $450M

The UK media scenario moved in February when the media monitoring and PR data set Cision gained Brandwatch, the online consumer intelligence and social media listening platform, for $450 million in a combined stock and cash deal.

Situated in Brighton on the English south coast, Brandwatch deals in social listening that permits brands to find out about buyer sentiment. Cision desires to unite this with its media and PR smarts to give customers a better image of how consumers see their brand.

MindMed secured HealthMode

Psychedelic medicine-focused biotech MindMed (OTCQB:MMEDF) will secure HealthMode, giving MindMed access to artificial intelligence-enabled digital measurement to upgrade clinical examination and patient monitoring.

Under the terms, MindMed will procure HealthMode through the issuance of 82,508 multiple voting shares of MindMed, which is comparable to 8,250,836 subordinate voting shares.

LiveRamp has gained DataFleets

LiveRamp has gained DataFleets, a new startup that made it conceivable to harness huge volumes of encrypted information without the risk or quarrel of decrypting or transferring it. LiveRamp, an enterprise data connectivity platform itself, paid more than $68 million for the organization, a tremendous multiple on DataFleet’s $4.5 million seed declared the previous fall

SentinelOne to secure Scalyr for $155M

Cybersecurity analytics seller SentinelOne made a splashy securing in February, getting the log analytics and observability software specialist Scalyr for $155 million in stock and cash. The mix of Scalyr’s data analytics with our industry driving AI capacities introduces another period of machine-speed anticipation, location, and response to attacks across the company.

CrowdStrike to get Humio for $400M

One more deal following the SentinelOne acquisition of Scalyr, CrowdStrike declared it would gain another logging subject matter expert, Humio, for $400 million. Humio’s remarkable selling point has consistently been limitless logging, permitting clients to gather how much ever they need for a better view of how their frameworks are functioning.

Service Leadership Inc. acquired by ConnectWise

Service Leadership Inc., a data-driven technology service provider (TSP) consulting company, was recently acquired by ConnectWise. ConnectWise would combine its TSP software and services platform, the IT Nation community, and the company maturity and leadership coaching program with Service Leadership’s value development, financial results, and organizational maturity benchmarking and best practices.

Pax8 and RocketCyber merger

Pax8 and RocketCyber recently announced a new collaboration. This will allow MSPs to provide constant cybersecurity detection and response to their clients. Endpoints, networks, and cloud operation will be monitored by partners in North America, providing enhanced security and threat protection.

Green Cloud Technologies purchased Cascade Defense

Green Cloud Technologies, a cloud technology solutions company, has agreed to buy Cascade Defense, a full-service managed security services provider located in Spokane, Washington. Green Cloud’s security product range will be boosted and expanded as a result of the deal, which is expected to close this quarter.

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Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) has completed its $15.75bn acquisition of analytics vendor Tableau Software (NYSE: DATA), its biggest ever acquisition.

The deal was announced this June, and came just after Google moved to acquire data analytics company Looker for $2.6bn.

With Tableau, Salesforce says it will play a greater role in driving digital transformation, enabling companies around the world to tap into data across their entire business and “surface deeper insights to make smarter decisions, drive intelligent, connected customer experiences and accelerate innovation”.

IDC projects worldwide spending on technologies and services that will enable digital transformation will reach $1.8 trillion in 2022. Tableau offers self-service analytics with an intuitive platform that allows people of any skill level to work with data. More than 86,000 organisations, such as Charles Schwab, Verizon, Schneider Electric, Southwest and Netflix, already use Tableau to help them manage their data.

Salesforce Customer 360 provides companies with a complete, intelligent view of their customers across every touchpoint, including sales, service, marketing, commerce and other areas. And Salesforce Einstein delivers AI-powered analytics for sales and marketing.

With Tableau and Einstein working together, Salesforce says it will deliver the “most intelligent and intuitive analytics and visualisation platform for every department and every user”. Tableau will also improve the capabilities of Customer 360, said Salesforce, enabling it to reach a broader set of customers.

Tableau will operate independently under the Tableau brand. Tableau will remain headquartered in Seattle and continue to be led by CEO Adam Selipsky and the current leadership team.

“Data is the foundation of every digital transformation, and that’s why we’ve never been more committed to delivering powerful analytics to every user,” said Keith Block, co-CEO of Salesforce. “Tableau will make Salesforce Customer 360, including Salesforce’s analytics capabilities, stronger than ever, enabling our customers to accelerate innovation and make smarter decisions across every part of their business.”

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BENGALURU: The top unicorns—shorthand for startups with valuations of $1 billion or more—in India are also the most acquisitive. Among other things, it indicates how many of these companies have used mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to scale up rapidly in a short period of time.

In contrast, among traditional technology companies in India, such deals are few and far between.

For instance, Quikr, the most acquisitive unicorn in India, has made 12 acquisitions since 2016, according to Tracxn, a technology data tracker. In comparison, India’s largest tech firm, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, has made just two acquisitions, according to Crunchbase data.

Successful acquisitions are also more common among startups than traditional technology companies.

In 2014, when Flipkart bought Myntra for nearly $330 million, little did the unicorn know that its acquisition of the country’s largest online fashion retailer would bear fruit. Last year, when Walmart purchased Flipkart at a valuation of $21 billion, Myntra comprised $5.5-6.5 billion of the deal value, becoming one of the most successful acquisitions by a unicorn in India so far.

Over the past four years, unicorns have been on an acquisition spree even as they were busy raising capital. About 36 acquisitions have been made by five unicorns.

The difference lies in the size of the deals, where traditional tech firms take the lead. While there a few big purchases by the Indian unicorns, a majority of them are in the range of $40-50 million or just acqui-hires, where a startup is bought primarily for the skills or expertise of its employees and not the products or services it may be offering.

Experts say startups such as Quikr, Flipkart, Paytm and OYO Hotels and Homes tend to acquire more as their businesses are consumer-facing and depend on back-end technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and data mining that help in boosting usage experience. Therefore, the appetite is to acquire startups that are doing innovative work in these segments.

“If you have the IP (intellectual property), if you have the human resources, which are perceived as beneficial for the acquirer, then it’s a win-win situation for both the acquirer and the acquiree,” said Murali Talasila, partner and innovation leader at PwC India.

For hospitality firm OYO Hotels and Homes, a unicorn backed by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, the acquisition strategy is targeted at acquiring entities that help it in enhancing its core tech and business capabilities, and enable market share acceleration in key markets and segments by starting new businesses.

Since inception, OYO Hotels has completed four acquisitions, the latest being that of Amsterdam-based vacation rental company @Leisure Group for $415 million, which helped the company get a foothold in Europe by providing an inventory of more than 300,000 rooms.

“Our other past acquisitions include Novascotia Boutique Homes (a Chennai-based serviced apartment brand), AblePlus (a Mumbai-based Internet of Things technology company) and Weddingz.in (a wedding planning site) and all these businesses continue to play an extremely important role in growing our business across segments,” said Maninder Gulati, global chief strategy officer and head of global homes business at OYO Hotels.

Unlike in the case of M&As by traditional tech firms, where post-acquisition synergies can play a big role in chances of being successful, in the case of unicorns, the transaction tickets are often not large enough to impact a firm too hard, according to experts. “Most of the time, the acquirer and acquired are cut from the same cloth,” Talasila said. “The delta, which exists between both of them, is much narrower than in the traditional tech world. You will not hear nasty stories of an acquiree saying the company’s culture is so bad that they will walk out the next day.”

But that’s not to say that all acquisitions by unicorns are successful. ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd-owned Ola has suspended Foodpanda India’s food delivery business, nearly 18 months after it acquired the company. In 2016, Ola shut down TaxiForSure, a year after it acquired the smaller rival for $200 million to maintain lead over Uber.

Experts, however, said Ola might still be able to work something around Foodpanda. “Sometimes you acquire just for the sake of IP… to try things,” Talasila said. “As a newborn unicorn, one wants to compete with their closest competition on every front. If Uber is doing UberEats, its closest Indian competitor cannot overlook it. They have the IP now and can launch the food services in other countries where Foodpanda is a more familiar name.”

In the meantime, the M&A spree of unicorns is being seen favourably by industry insiders, who believe this will help the startup ecosystem.

“Acquisitions like these help in exits for both new entrepreneurs and investors, which encourage more innovation and dry powder to investors,” said Harish H.V., managing partner at ECube, an environmental, social and governance fund.

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