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Zomato Acquires a Bengaluru-based Food-Tech Startup

5Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Zomato Acquires a Bengaluru-based Food-Tech Startup

Zomato, the online food delivery and restaurant discovery giant has reportedly acquired a Bengaluru-based startup known as TongueStun Food in a cash and stock deal. The startup is basically concerned with aggregating caterers and restaurants for office canteens. Following this acquisition, the valuation of the company will reach $18 million as stated by the people involved in the transaction. Also, Deepinder Goyal, the co-founder & CEO of Zomato has confirmed the news of transaction. He also stated that they saw immense growth opportunity in the food at workplace segment. "We don't see the ceiling to how big this market could become just yet. What we know is that this market is very high frequency, and customers are very sticky as they end up placing more than 20 orders a month on ...

Ambit Finvest Buys Out SME Lending Unit of Finmax

4Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Ambit Finvest Buys Out SME Lending Unit of Finmax

The subsidiary of investment bank Ambit Group called Ambit Finvest has reportedly acquired Finmax Credit & Finance, a unit of fintech firm Finmax that finances small and medium enterprises. The details regarding the finances has not been disclosed yet. This acquisition is expected to give a significant direction and goal to Ambit Finvest’s strategy to diversify its asset base and create granularity in its lending portfolio. With the acquisition of an SME-focussed lending business, the company is looking to see its Rs 400 crore worth loan book get a strong boost. This deal will take the company’s asset base to Rs 600 crore. According to the agreement, Finmax’s team of 140 employees along with founder Sanjay Agarwal will join Ambit Finvest. After the implementation of the deal, ...

Coca-Cola Buys Out ‘Costa Coffee’ from Whitbread

1Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Coca-Cola Buys Out ‘Costa Coffee’ from Whitbread

US-based beverage maker Coca-Cola has reportedly agreed to buy out coffee chain Costa Coffee from UK drinks and hotels group Whitbread. The amount of the deal is worth $5.1 billion including debt. This move has been taken primarily to extend its push into healthier drinks as the demand for aerated and soda drinks is falling. Also, the company is trying to take on the likes of Starbucks and Nestle as the global coffee market is getting a boost. Costa has nearly 4,000 stores across 32 countries. It will give Coca-Cola "a strong coffee platform across parts of Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, with the opportunity for additional expansion," Coca-Cola stated. Coca-Cola will use its distribution network to supercharge Costa's expansion as it is currently behind the predomin...

Google & Xiaomi Eyeing Investment in ‘Where is my Train’ App

31Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Google & Xiaomi Eyeing Investment in ‘Where is my Train’ App

Technology giant Google and Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi are eying an investment in an app called ‘Where Is My Train’ that provides live updates on trains without the use of internet and GPS. Google is in talks to acquire the two-year-old startup, whereas Xiaomi has held discussions for an investment. It is expected that Google will acquire the company for $30-40 million in the near future. However, the transaction has not yet been finalized. "The talks with Google are more advanced and they are likely to buy the company as a part of their Next Billion Users initiative," a person familiar to the matter stated. Where Is My Train is owned and operated by Sigmoid Labs, and is one of the most downloaded train-based apps in the country. It was was founded by five former executives of Ti...

31Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Apple Acquires a Colorado-based Startup Focused on Lenses for AR Glasses

Technology company Apple Inc has reportedly acquired Akonia Holographics, a startup focused on making lenses for augmented reality glasses, the company confirmed on Wednesday, a signal Apple has ambitions to make a wearable device that would superimpose digital information on the real world. The company was founded in 2012 by a group of holography scientists and had originally focused on holographic data storage before shifting its efforts to creating displays for augmented reality glasses. "Apple buys smaller companies from time to time, and we generally don't discuss our purpose or plans," Apple stated. Akonia also said it raised $11.6 million in seed funding in 2012 and was seeking additional funding. It was unclear whether that funding ever materialized or who the firm's investors...

Mumbai-based Engine Maker to Acquire Majority Stake in Ampere Vehicles

30Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Mumbai-based Engine Maker to Acquire Majority Stake in Ampere Vehicles

One of the most diversified Indian engineering company Greaves Cotton Ltd is reportedly acquiring a majority stake in electric two-wheeler manufacturer Ampere Vehicles. Following the deal, Greaves Cotton which is based in Mumbai will be acquiring 67% of Ratan Tata-backed Ampere for Rs 77 crore. Furthermore, according to company’s statements, Greaves may also buy out another 13% of the Coimbatore-based company for Rs 75.5 crore after three years. The first part of the deal is expected to be closed by the end of December, subject to customary closing conditions. This deal will value the ten year old electric maker Ampere at Rs 115 crore. With this acquisition, Greaves is planning to boost up its product and technology development process especially for last mile mobility in the ele...

Amazon Pay Looking to Acquire Tapzo in a Cash & Stock Deal

28Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Amazon Pay Looking to Acquire Tapzo in a Cash & Stock Deal

Amazon’s online payments processing service Amazon Pay is looking forward to acquiring personal assistant platform Tapzo in a part-stock and part-cash deal with an aim to build on its payment offering and create multiple use cases for it. The deal has been valued at between $40-45 million. The stock component will give a cash-out to investors whereas Ankur Singla and Vishal Pal Chaudhary, co-founders of Tapzo will get some cash along with shares in Amazon. The sources have claimed that the deal was completed last week and Tapzo’s founders are likely to get on board Amazon Pay’s team in India. Founded in 2010, Tapzo is an aggregator platform that allows users to access over 35 apps including Amazon, Flipkart, Ola, Uber, and more from its interface. It provides a group of transactio...

Berkshire Hathaway Eyeing to Acquire Stake in Paytm

27Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Berkshire Hathaway Eyeing to Acquire Stake in Paytm

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is looking to acquire a stake in Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications Ltd. The amount that the company is eyeing to invest is around Rs 2,000-2,500 crore. This investment if implemented would be the first direct investment in India by the legendary billionaire investor. It has been reported that the transaction could be completed in the coming weeks valuing Paytm at over $10 billion and giving it more lift. “Berkshire is in talks to pick up a 3-4% stake in the company and it is being done through a primary subscription of shares,” said one of the people familiar with the matter. Paytm had been in talks with Berkshire Hathaway since early February regarding this matter and the deal is just about t0 take place. The most important investors of ...

Prataap Snacks Acquires Majority Stake in Gujarat-based Snacks Maker

24Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Prataap Snacks Acquires Majority Stake in Gujarat-based Snacks Maker

The parent company of Yellow Diamond chips called Prataap Snacks Ltd has reportedly announced to acquire a majority stake in Avadh Snacks Pvt Ltd., a Gujarat-based snacks manufacturer. The advisory source behind Prataap Snacks on this transaction was Intensive Fiscal Services Pvt Ltd. Prataap Snacks is a Mumbai-listed company and has claimed that it is going to buy out 80% stake in Avadh Snacks. The deal will be done through a combination of primary and secondary share purchases. The amount of the acquisition is worth Rs 148 crore ($21 million). "Our acquisition of Avadh will help us accelerate our growth and deepen our presence in the key market of Gujarat," said Amit Kumat, chief executive at Prataap Snacks. Avadh Snacks was established in 2010 and the company’s line of products ...

Cognizant To Acquire Noida Based Consulting Company

23Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Cognizant To Acquire Noida Based Consulting Company

The intelligence technology company Cognizant has successfully entered into an agreement to acquire a consulting firm called SaaSfocus that specializes in digital transformation, taking the fuller advantage of the Salesforce Platform. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018, subject to certain closing conditions. However, the financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed yet. With this acquisition, the professional services company expects to expand its end-to-end digital transformation services and Salesforce cloud capabilities in the Asia Pacific region. "This acquisition of a respected and successful Salesforce specialist underlines our commitment to helping clients in Australia and India digitally transform their businesses and reshape the way th...

Flipkart Acquires AI-led Speech Recognition Startup Liv.ai

22Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Flipkart Acquires AI-led Speech Recognition Startup Liv.ai

India's most popular e-commerce platform Flipkart has announced that it has acquired an AI-led speech recognition startup Liv.ai. The primary purpose of this acquisition is to boost up an end-to-end conversational shopping experience for its customers. Along with this, voice integration could be available in some parts of the Flipkart platform as soon as 6-8 months. Liv.ai was started in 2015 by Subodh Kumar, Kishore Mundra and Sanjeev Kumar. The company had developed a speech to text platform supporting 10 Indian languages the constitute Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. “We work on speech recognition and surrounding technologies and these will be extremely valuable to any company that wants to target the Indian customer base of 100-200 ...

CapitalFloat Acquires Pune Based Fintech Firm in $30 Million

22Aug By NitishNo Comments

ACQUISITION

CapitalFloat Acquires Pune Based Fintech Firm in $30 Million

Digital lending firm Capital Float has acquired Pune-based fintech firm Walnut (Thumbworks Technologies) in a deal amounting to USD 30 million (about Rs 208.6 crore). Walnut offers a personal finance management mobile app that helps users to automatically track spends, bank and card balances, bill payments, and split expenses within a group. It has over seven million downloads on Google Play Store. In July 2017, Walnut had launched 'Walnut Prime', a small-ticket, app-based credit line for its users. It recently crossed Rs 100 crore in loans to users. "Their approach towards leveraging technology to solve financial concerns of the common individual was particularly impressive... Walnut Prime is a product of deep interest to us, and it will essentially become a new addition to our sta...