URGE TO MERGE: OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU

With emergence of online marketplaces over the last decade, new trends are revolutionising the traditional business. As the next big trend, startups are consolidating with other on demand players to attain high level of synergy. Bigger companies, flush with cash, are consistently looking for attractive and innovative small businesses to acquire in order to expand in new ways. Other big companies choose to diversify in new verticals by leveraging the existing setup and user-base.

After 2016 being the second-best (after financial crisis) with M&A market accounted for 3.9 trillion, 2017 is anticipated to witness an active M&A global market. Tech, being one of the most active sectors, requires companies to pursue highly strategic acquisitions. Acquisitions help companies to widen customer base, increase global market reach and increase utilization of fleet. There have been plenty of billion dollar deals lately, let us have a look on the major ones.

Didi acquires Uber in China

Acquiring Uber in China, Didi Chuxing invested $1 billion and gave an equity of 17% in the combined entity. It took place in August, 2016 where Didi mentioned about integration of backends, managerial operations and technology experience. Here is what Travis, CEO of Uber had to say,

“I have no doubt that Uber China and Didi Chuxing will be stronger together. That’s why I’m so excited about our future, both in China—a country which has been incredibly open to innovation in our industry—and the rest of the world, where ridesharing is increasingly becoming a credible alternative to car ownership.”

Zomato acquires Sparse Labs

To provide its customers on-time deliveries and to track restaurant fleets, Zomato acquired Sparse Labs in Sept, 2016. Before Sparse Labs, Zomato acquired quite a lot of startups to expand the customer base and improve the customer experience. Renaming Sparse Labs to Zomato Trace, Deepinder Goyal mentioned on Zomato blog:

“The number of food orders being placed via Zomato is growing by the day, and we’re constantly thinking of ways to improve and simplify the user experience. Zomato Trace is a big step in that direction, and we’re looking forward to get this up and running to scale in the upcoming weeks.”

Delivery Hero acquires Foodpanda

Starting as rivals in Berlin, Delivery Hero and Foodpanda consolidated in Dec, 2016. Delivery Hero aimed to strengthen its global leadership position with this acquisition. The merger is forecasted to serve 20 million orders per month in 47 countries. Rocket Internet, as a mutual investor in both the companies played an important role in the merger. CEO of Delivery Hero mentioned:

“Foodpanda has built a fantastic position and service offering in some of the largest food delivery markets globally. We look forward to working with the team to continue creating unparalleled takeaway experiences for our customers around the world.”

delivery.com acquires Klink

Food, groceries and now, alcohol on a single platform; delivery.com is expanding to all other verticals with greater pace. Klink customers have gotten access to the delivery.com’s existing network that has more than 12,000 local on demand businesses. Expressing the happiness, CEO of Klink , Jeffrey Nadel said:

“Having been one of the first companies to offer alcohol delivery, we couldn’t be more excited to pass the torch to delivery.com and allow our customers to order beer, wine, spirits and food — all in the same place. delivery.com has been an innovator in this space for more than a decade, and there’s no company we would rather be joining forces with.”

THE RIGHT TIME TO TAKE YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE IS NOW.

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