Cognizant to Acquire Digital Experience and Marketing Expert Netcentric

Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Netcentric, a leading provider of digital experience and marketing solutions for some of the world's most recognised brands, and a leading independent Adobe partner in Europe.

Netcentric's digital marketing teams in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany, as well as regional delivery centers in Barcelona and Bucharest, will enhance Cognizant's ability to deliver business critical digital experience solutions for clients in Europe and around the world. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2017, subject to satisfaction of closing conditions, including German regulatory review. Financial details were not disclosed.

Headquartered in Zurich, Netcentric works with leading brands such as Allianz, Mercedes-Benz, Miles & More, Raiffeisen, Swisscom and UBS, helping them personalise and deliver engaging digital experiences to customers. At the close of the acquisition, approximately 380 digital marketing specialists from Netcentric will join the Cognizant Digital Business practice, which addresses clients' needs to redefine business models, innovate products, deepen market intelligence and enhance digital experiences to drive growth and efficiencies in their businesses.

"The rapid growth of our business is driven by clients who understand that flourishing with the new digital economy requires merging marketing and digital concepts powered by more flexible IT that is delivered globally," said Elian Kool, CEO, Netcentric. "By joining forces with Cognizant, we will be able to integrate marketing, technology, analytics and AI to help clients provide personalised experiences across multiple channels and enable their digital transformation."

"We are excited about the Netcentric acquisition as it underscores our commitment to our clients across Europe and enhances our portfolio of digital capabilities in the interactive and digital marketing space," said Gajen Kandiah, President, Cognizant Digital Business. "It also further extends our Adobe Experience Cloud presence for the global brands we serve. We continue to expand on the digital marketing and experience skills our clients demand, and round out our ability to deliver these services to the market at scale."

About Netcentric
Netcentric, a leading service provider, transforms customer experiences for the world's top brands by unleashing the full potential of the Adobe Experience Cloud. We support clients throughout the entire process chain - from consulting and development through to marketing operations - helping them execute their digital strategy. Our leadership in the industry is rooted in our expertise in integrating the Adobe Experience Cloud technology to build scalable, bespoke and future proof solutions. By bridging the gap between marketing and technology, clients are able to drive automation to maximise their digital marketing performance. www.netcentric.biz, follow us @NetcentricHQ

About Cognizant 
Cognizant (NASDAQ-100: CTSH) is one of the world's leading professional services companies, transforming clients' business, operating and technology models for the digital era. Our unique industry-based, consultative approach helps clients envision, build and run more innovative and efficient businesses. Headquartered in the U.S., Cognizant is ranked 205 on the Fortune 500 and is consistently listed among the most admired companies in the world.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes statements which may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. These statements include, but are not limited to, express or implied forward-looking statements relating to the anticipated closing of the acquisition of Netcentric by Cognizant and expectations regarding the impact of such acquisition on the business and prospects of Cognizant and Netcentric. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements. Existing and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied include general economic conditions, changes in the regulatory environment, including with respect to immigration and taxes, and the other factors discussed in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cognizant undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities law.

Flipkart eyes more acquisitions, in talks with Swiggy, UrbanClap, UrbanLadder

Armed with over $4 billion in cash, India’s most valuable start-up Flipkart Ltd is planning more start-up investments and acquisitions as it seeks to widen its slender lead over Amazon India and diversify its business.

Flipkart has held talks to invest in food-delivery app Swiggy, services firm UrbanClap, furniture retailer UrbanLadder and some start-ups in insurance and wealth management, said three people familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Mint had reported on 15 October that Flipkart was in talks to buy a large minority stake in Bookmyshow in a deal that may value the ticketing platform at $500-700 million.

The talks with the companies mentioned above haven’t yet materialized into deals.

Flipkart’s merger and acquisition (M&A) approach marks a shift from its strategy of 2014-15, when it sought to build a venture capital-like portfolio by investing prolifically. In those two years, Flipkart invested in or bought more than a dozen companies, including fashion retailer Myntra, trucking marketplace Blackbuck and advertising tech start-up AdIquity. Many of these were financial investments rather than deals that would boost the company’s business.


Now, Flipkart is only seeking large, strategic deals that will directly help its business, the three people cited above said, requesting anonymity.

Recent regulatory filings also confirm the shift in Flipkart’s approach towards mergers and acquisitions. According to filings with the corporate affairs ministry in September, Flipkart increased its reserves for financing acquisitions and significant investments to roughly Rs8,000 crore (over $1.2 billion) from earlier levels of Rs3,000 crore.

Flipkart didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. UrbanClap and Swiggy also did not respond to requests for comment. UrbanLadder said no deal with Flipkart is in the works currently.

This year, Flipkart has raised nearly $3 billion in fresh capital from SoftBank Group Corp., Tencent Holdings, eBay Inc. and Microsoft Corp. In August, Flipkart said it has more than $4 billion in cash.


Flipkart is India’s most acquisitive internet firm. Since starting out in 2007, it has bought or invested in over 20 companies. Its largest acquisition was that of Myntra for more than $330 million in May 2014. Earlier this year, Flipkart also tried to buy struggling smaller rival Snapdeal (Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd) for nearly $1 billion in stock but the deal collapsed in August because of differences over valuation and deal structure, among other things.

Flipkart is battling Amazon for supremacy in India’s $15 billion e-commerce market, which has seen a sharp slowdown in growth since the start of 2016.

Given this slowdown, Flipkart should seek deals to boost sales, analysts say. The company’s payments platform PhonePe is locked in a fight with another SoftBank-backed firm, Paytm, and Amazon Pay in the fast-growing consumer payments business.

Flipkart is also expanding into newer businesses. The company is working on offering insurance and wealth management products. To launch this business, it has considered buying a stake in fintech start-ups, the people cited above said.

“Flipkart’s new M&A approach is similar to what the large Chinese internet companies and ventures have done in China over much of the past decade—buy out smaller rivals and pick up strategic stakes in other large internet start-ups. Flipkart is trying to do two things—firstly, they are ensuring that they reach a size and scale from which they can’t be toppled by even deep-pocketed rivals such as Amazon. Secondly, they are essentially not missing the bus and protecting themselves from disruption,” said one of the people cited earlier.

(Courtesy : Livemint)

Quikr acquires Babajob to expand its position in blue collar jobs

Online classifieds portal Quikr India Pvt. Ltd has acquired job listing company Babajob Services Pvt. Ltd in an attempt to strengthen its position in the blue collar jobs segment.

“This will combine the two largest Indian aspiring job players—Babajob and QuikrJobs—into one entity, a tool to help everyone in India get a better job. The Babajob board, Vir (Vir Kashyap, co-founder and chief operating officer) and I decided that joining forces with Quikr represented our best option for scaling Babajob’s mission—providing better jobs for everyone by helping employers digitally hire aspiring workers,” Sean Blagsvedt, co-founder and chief executive officer at Babajob, said in an email.

Blagsvedt said that QuikrJobs, the classifieds company’s job listing service, is already profitable and the combined entity of Babajob and QuikrJobs will become the largest platform for blue collar job seekers.

The companies did not divulge details of the deal. Blagsvedt and Kashyap will quit the company following the acquisition.

Babajob will continue to operate as a separate entity, said a Quikr spokesperson.


Babajob, founded in 2007 by Blagsvedt, Kashyap and Ira Weise, has raised at least $10 million in multiple funding rounds. Its investors include SEEK Ltd, a global online employment company, GrayGhost Ventures and Khosla Impact. According to Blagsvedt, 8.5 million verified job seekers sought jobs from more than five lakh employers on Babajob.

“We innovated and scaled telephony, chat and mobile solutions to connect multilingual job seekers and employers. We defined a category and perhaps most importantly, showed the market that there was a need and business opportunity to build a job site for everyone, even those with little education, knowledge of computers or command of English,” Blagsvedt said in the email.

Babajob’s nearest competitor, Asaanjobs Pvt. Ltd, has raised about $6.5 million from Aspada Advisors, Inventus Capital and IDG ventures. The online recruitment sector also witnessed some closures with companies such as TalentPad and WhistleTalk shutting shop, citing lack of scalability.

For Quikr, which has been on an acquisition spree in the last 18 months, this is the second acquisition in the jobs segment. In July last year, the company had acquired IDG Ventures-backed online job listing platform Hiree (Abhiman Technologies Pvt. Ltd) for an undisclosed amount.

Over the past two years, Quikr has been diversifying into new businesses to boost sales. The company is pushing into five new business segments—automobiles, real estate, jobs, services and customer-to-customer sales.

Having raised about $346 million from Kinnevik AB, Tiger Global, Steadview Capital Management, Matrix Partners India and others since inception in 2008, Quikr has been an active buyer of smaller rivals, especially in the real estate and home services segments, as it looks to bolster fledgling revenues.

Since January last year, Quikr has bought nine companies: Commonfloor, its most expensive purchase yet for about $120 million and Grabhouse in the real estate segment; Stayglad, Zapluk, Salosa and Zimmber in beauty and home services segment; Babajob and Hiree in online recruitment; and Stepni in the automobile segment.

Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd (HDFC) is in talks with Quikr to sell its brokerage business HDFC Realty and its digital business HDFC Red in an all-stock deal for about Rs350-400 crore, Mint reported on 27 April.

Quikr clocked net sales of Rs41 crore in the year ended 31 March 2016, against Rs25 crore the year before. Its loss surged to Rs534 crore from Rs450 crore in the same period, according to regulatory filings.

Originally Posted in Livemint

Dell Closes $60 Billion Merger with EMC

Dell completed its merger with EMC Corporation today. The new merged company pushes Dell farther on its trajectory away from its roots as a computer maker in Round Rock.

Michael Dell is one of the architects of the $60 billion acquisition – the largest deal in tech industry history. He is now the CEO the newly-named Dell Technologies. Dell's core computer business, the company we've known for years, will be based in Round Rock. It's new combined data center business, Dell EMC, will be based in EMC's Hopkinton, Mass. offices.

Dell Chief Financial Officer Tom Sweet projected annual revenue for Dell Technologies to be about $74 billion, making it the third largest private companies in the U.S. according to Forbes, behind Cargill and Koch Industries.

Technology expert Rob Enderle, who used to work on acquisitions at IBM, says this is a rare deal where Dell is the smaller company buying a bigger one. But the size of EMC and Dell’s enterprise plans going forward means the center of Dell’s universe may no longer be in Round Rock.

“It looks like much of the enterprise work, or the mass of Dell, will start reporting out of Massachusetts and no longer be in Texas,” says Enderle.

"We've got the Austin headquarters. We've got the Boston headquarters," said Dell EMC President David Goulden on a conference call this morning. "We're actually a dual-headquartered company, that's global in nature. We have significant number of strategic development, R&D, manufacturing sights around the world that form part of our critical ecosystem."

Round Rock staff are no strangers to scaling up a company, but Enderle suggests the magnitude of what Dell is trying to do with EMC may inevitably pull focus to its suburban-Boston office. But, he says, the company will not lose its presence here completely.

"It's not like Dell [Round Rock] is going to be wiped out, because Dell is Michael Dell's baby, so he's certainly going to take care of it," Enderle said.

When asked about a potential shift to the Northeast, Dell spokesperson Lon Levitan said the newly-formed company will maintain the Round Rock campus.

"Central Texas absolutely will continue as an important hub of innovation for the combined company," Levitan said. "For years Dell has operated with multiple locations around the globe.”

Courtesy : Kut.org

Nutanix, the company driving VMware crazy, just made a brilliant acquisition

Nutanix officially confirmed that it bought a startup called PernixData.

News of the deal had leaked a few weeks ago when PernixData's outgoing CTO Frank Denneman told The Register's Chris Mellor that the sale was already a done deal.

This is a brilliant move by Nutanix and a curious one by PernixData's leadership.

It's brilliant for Nutanix for a bunch of reasons. For one, Nutanix has nabbed a key person familiar with the tech of its biggest rival.

Nutanix helped usher in a new computer storage market known as "hyperconverged," which combines storage along with compute power and the special software that manages computers called a hypervisor.

VMware is the biggest maker of hypervisors - that's its flagship, bread-and-butter product - although Microsoft also has its own, as does Red Hat, Citrix, others.

Nutanix's products works with VMware's hypervisor, of course, but the company also built its own to take on VMware head on, a hypervisor product known as Acropolis.

Given Nutanix's enormous popularity with businesses, this was a tricky move on Nutanix's part to unseat the hypervisor king, so much so that VMware has tried to counter-punch and release its own hyperconverged storage product, known as EVO:RAIL. It didn't sell well and The Reg reported in February that VMware had quietly shelved EVO:RAIL in favor of different storage software.

One of the co-founders of PernixData, Satyam Vaghani, was the early employee of VMware that built some of VMware's key storage technology and then ran VMware's storage business. (Storage giant EMC grew so nervous by these projects, it acquired a controlling interest in 2003 for about $635 million.)

So bringing Vaghani into the Nutanix fold is a big score.

Meanwhile PernixData's other founder, Poojan Kumarwas a key engineer who developed Oracle's compute and storage product, Exadata, which has become a multi-billion product for Oracle.

A not-so-big exit?
Meanwhile, word was that PernixData may have been running low on cash.

The startup makes software that allows existing flash storage drives to work faster and store more stuff. Instead of endlessly buying more storage, it lets a company use the storage it has more efficiently. It works with VMware's hypervisor. Now it will work with Acropolis.
PernixData has nabbed about 800 customers. But even so, the software was considered more like a storage feature than a product that could evolve to become the basis of a giant tech company.

So in this tougher venture environment in 2016, we can see why PernixData may have struggled to raise more money to fund growth.

The curious part is the sale: how much Nutanix paid for it. Terms of the deal were not announced, and no one is reporting a whisper number.

PernixData raised $62 million in three rounds with its last a $35 million round led by Menlo Ventures in 2014.

Meanwhile, Nutanix appeared to be having its own form of cash problems. It was expected to have completed its IPO by now, but the IPO has stalled during this harsh IPO year where investors have lost their taste for unprofitable, highly valued tech startups burning through loads of cash.

In May, Nutanix took out a $75 million loan from Goldman Sachs that Nutanix CFO characterized as "insurance" while waiting to IPO.

So the likelihood is that, whatever Nutanix paid, it wasn't a massive all-cash amount.

That said, if PernixData's revenue growth is good, that could help Nutanix spiffy up its financials and convince public investors to bite at its stock at a price that would justify the $2 billion valuation its venture investors once gave it.

Nutanix also bought another startup, Calm.io, which made software to support the new DevOps and containers trends. Calm.io had raised about $4 million, according to its Crunchbase profile.

The Reg is reporting that the Calm.io deal was the one referenced in a Nutanix S1 amended filing, which disclosed 528,517 shares and $1.2m in cash.

Courtesy: BusinessInsider

Microsoft acquires automated meeting scheduling app Genee to make Office 365 smarter

Microsoft has announced that it’s acquired Genee, a productivity app that launched in beta last year and focused on automating the task of scheduling meetings. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Genee allowed users to set up meetings without having to consult a calendar. Once Genee was CCed on an email asking a contact for a meeting, the app would email them with options based on your availability and preferences and add the appointment to your schedule. It’s certainly not the only such service to do this; others like x.ai and Clara offer similar capabilities.

Microsoft noted that the Genee team will join the Office 365 fold to help “further our ambition to bring intelligence into every digital experience.” It seems like the obvious move would be to integrate Genee’s meeting scheduling service into Outlook, but Microsoft hasn’t specified whether that’s on the cards.

The Redmond giant has been doubling down on productivity apps in the past couple of years: Earlier this year it acquired professional social network LinkedIn; in 2015, it bought to-do tool Wunderlist, the popular Sunrise calendar, mobile team chat service Talko and MileIQ, a mileage-tracking app; in 2014, it snapped up email app Acompli.

Genee will shut down its own service on September 1; it will stop sending out reminders, but all existing entries in your calendar created by Genee will remain.

Courtesy : thenextweb.com

Apple Acquires Personal Health Data Startup Gliimpse

Apple's ambitions in the health sector continue to expand, with its digital health team making its first known acquisition—personal health data startup Gliimpse, Fast Company has learned.

Silicon Valley-based Gliimpse has built a personal health data platform that enables any American to collect, personalize, and share a picture of their health data. The company was started in 2013 by Anil Sethi and Karthik Hariharan. Sethi is a serial entrepreneur who has spent the past decade working with health startups, after taking his company Sequoia Software public in 2000. He got his start as a systems engineer at Apple in the late 1980s.

The acquisition happened earlier this year, but Apple has been characteristically quiet about it. The company has now confirmed the purchase, saying: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

According to Sethi's LinkedIn page, Gliimpse—like many startups—was born of a personal need. Sethi says that he's followed his sister through her battle with breast cancer and discovered firsthand how challenging it is to acquire and manage your personal health data.

The acquisition will bolster Apple’s efforts in digital health. In recent years, Apple has delved into the sector with a range of services (HealthKit, CareKit, and ResearchKit) that allow patients, clinicians, and researchers to access important health and wellness data via a range of mobile devices. That's in line with Gliimpse's mission of uniting disparate streams of health information.

What stands out about the deal is that Gliimpse is intended for patients with diseases like cancer and diabetes. Apple recently hired a top pediatric endocrinologist who developed a HealthKit app for teens with Type 1 diabetes, signaling an increased interest in applications for chronically ill users.

It's unlikely that this acquisition will bring Apple's health technologies under the purview of federal regulators. CEO Tim Cook recently told Fast Company in an interview that he sees a major business opportunity for the company in the non-regulated side of health care: "So if you don’t care about reimbursement, which we have the privilege of doing, that may even make the smartphone market look small."

It's hard to tell how Apple will use the technology—in previous cases, the technology it has acquired from another company often ends up looking very different when it finally makes it into a product.

So far, the acquisition has not been announced on LinkedIn, or on the company's website.

Courtesy : Fastcompany.com

Chinese Consortium Acquires Media.Net For $900 Million In Third-Largest Ever AdTech Deal

AdTech pioneer Media.net, has been acquired by a Chinese consortium from serial internet entrepreneur Divyank Turakhia’s Starbuster TMT Investments in an all-cash transaction of $900 million.

The Consortium is led by Zhiyong Zhang, Chairman of Beijing Miteno Communication Technology, a technology, media and telecom (TMT) business listed on the GEM Board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. This completes the first step toward Media.net being acquired by, and integrated into, Beijing-based Miteno.

Media.net is a large, growing and profitable business with annual revenues of $232 million. It currently manages more than $450 million of annual advertising revenue via its platform, more than 50% of which is generated from mobile users.

More than 90% of Media.net’s total revenue comes from the U.S. With seven offices worldwide, including global headquarters in Dubai, and U.S. headquarters in New York City, the company has more than 800 employees.

“Our team has spent the last several years putting together one of the most comprehensive platforms for AdTech, and we are just getting started. The acquisition will enable us to be an even greater platform for innovation and investment on a global scale,” said Divyank Turakhia, Media.net’s founder and CEO.

A serial entrepreneur with a proven track record of performance, Turakhia has had considerable success with other exits. In 2014, Endurance International Group bought four brands that he co-founded with his brother, Bhavin Turakhia, for approximately $160 million.

He started his first internet business in 1996 at the age of 14, made his first million at 18, first $100 million at 23, and now crossed his first $1 billion at the age of 34.

Courtesy : Forbes.com

Uber acquires truck startup Otto, plans test run of driverless SUVs

American multinational online transportation firm Uber Technologies Inc announced that it has acquired 'Otto', a technology startup whose aim is to make trucks self-driving.

While announcing the move in a posting on Uber's website on Thursday, chief executive officer and co-founder Travis Kalanick said his company would put about 100 self-driving sports utility vehicles (SUVs) onto the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as soon as this month, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to Kalanick, some customers in the city, where Uber's Advanced Technologies Centre is located, will be able to summon the Volvo XC90s, outfitted with dozens of sensors that use cameras, lasers, radar, and global positioning system (GPS) receivers, for short rides while a human helper will be in the driver seat to supervise.

In his posting, Kalanick did not mention the planned self-driving test run in Pittsburgh, and did not reveal details of the deal between the world's largest ride-hailing network and Otto, both based in San Francisco, California.

Now a 90-person company, Otto was co-founded earlier this year by Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who once worked at Google on self-driving technology and two other former colleagues to equip trucks with software, sensors, lasers and cameras so they will be able to navigate the highway on their own.

Levandowski will lead "combined self-driving efforts reporting directly to me, across personal transportation, delivery and trucking," Kalanick said, noting that "when it comes to this advanced technology stack, Otto plus Uber is a dream team" and that "we now have one of the strongest autonomous engineering groups in the world."

Acknowledging that Uber has no experience in making cars, Kalanick also announced a partnership with Swedish car maker Volvo.

Courtesy : Business-Standard

Hansa Cequity acquires Bengaluru -based D-Square Solutions

Hansa Cequity, a customer marketing company said it has acquired a majority stake in Bengaluru-based data science and analytics company, D-Square Solutions Private Limited, for an undisclosed sum.

Hansa hopes that the acquisition will help it scale the breadth of its analytics offerings and give it an entry into artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.


"D-Square will operate as a separate entity but will synergize its resources and offerings with Cequity," said Ajay Khelkar, COO and co-founder, Hansa Cequity said in a statement.

Hansa Cequity had raised around $5 million (Rs 30 crore) from private equity firm ASK Pravi in June last year.

Hansa Cequity is a customer marketing company which provides customer strategy, data services, analytics, campaign management, digital and customer relationship centre services for key clients across different verticals.

They company claims to have over 80 million unique customer profiles being hosted in their infrastructure and analyse over 70 terabytes of data & manage over 600 million one-to-one customer-intelligence interactions in a year.

Hansa Cequity is currently a team of about 700 professionals working in client consulting engagements.

"This acquisition would strengthen our data science expertise and help in building strong capabilities in building cutting-edge artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities in addition to enhancing our analytics-driven marketing offerings," said, S Swaminathan, CEO and co-founder of Hansa Cequity.

"Founded in 2009, Bengaluru based D-Square Solutions brings together business analytics products and consultancy solutions to help optimise time spent on informed decisions," added Swaminathan.

D-square currently caters to clients in IT & networking, BFSI and other industries across markets.

"There has always been a growing appetite by decision makers for data science," said Anand Srinivasan, founder and chief executive of D-Square Solutions. (EOM)

 Courtesy : Business-Standard