UK Technology M&A Review - January 2021 GLOBAL TECH BANKING - ICON Corporate Finance
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UK Technology
M&A Review
January 2021
GLOBAL TECH BANKING
2 3
Contents Key
• The strangest of years but massive
government stimulus in response to
COVID-19 – whatever it takes
Findings
• Interest rates fell to record lows and
3 Key Findings squeezed valuations even higher
• Wave of cheap money fuelling strong
6 Highlights equity markets -NASDAQ up 43%
last year. FANG+ doubled
10 UK Technology M&A • Retail investors created bubbles in • Overseas buyers are still key in UK,
13 FinTech the likes of Bitcoin, Tesla and US and accounted for a record 48% of
Cloud software IPOs deals in 2020
14 Legal & Compliance
• Lots of UK Technology M&A activity, • Consolidation in Payments, Logistics,
15 Property Related over 700 deals. Q4 was up 6% YoY – Legal, Property, Education and digital
near record volume transformation
17 Transport & Logistics
• UK valuations rose again, 5x • Busiest acquirers in UK in 2020 were
19 Hardware revenues is increasingly common PE backed – such as Advanced,
19 Cybersecurity Access, Clearcourse but also
included new buyers from Australia
21 IOT/AI & Machine Learning and Scandinavia
22 EdTech NASDAQ - WHAT CRISIS? • We have a vaccine, Donald has
gone, Brexit is behind us – what can
23 Human Capital Management Tech
possibly go wrong?
24 Cloud Software 13.5k
25 Information Management
12.5k
26 eCommerce
27 Communications 11.5k
30 ICT Managed Services
33 Computer Games 10.5k
34 Risers & Fallers
9.5k
36 US Technology M&A
8.5k
40 Alternatives – IPOs & Private Equity
7.5k
44 ICON Selected Deals
6.5k
5.5k
1/19 4/19 7/19 10/19 1/20 4/20 7/20 10/20 1/21
TECH M&A REVIEW4 5
No. GLOBAL
Key M&A TECH M&A DEALS Q4
201
20
2,534
Statistics
19
9
UK PRICE to EBIT (x)
2326 / 2534
16.2
12mth AVERAGE
/ 18.4
18.4
2 02 0
+9%
20
20
20
20
19
210 / 223 2 02 0
2019
No. UK TECH
96
20 37%
No. GLOBAL
86
TECH M&A DEALS YEAR M&A DEALS YEAR /
/
9465
No. UK TECH
711
48
2 02 0
8,696
%
M&A DEALS Q4
20
UK PERCENTAGE of
2019
20
711
223
CROSS BORDER DEALS
/ 48%
877
-8% -19%
9
01 2 +6%
Key Macro
Statistics NASDAQ
DE
0
12,890
C3
2 02
31
1 2 019
C
DE
31 2020
72
DEC US$/£
.36
9 0 06 /
/ 64 EXCHANGE RATE
1.33 / 1
1.36
42
+43%
75
FTSE
128
BITCOIN (US$)
019
6,472
9
1 2019
29,000
0D
D E C 31 2
E C 31 2 0 2 0
EC
2 019 3111 / 6
C 31 311
31
C3
DE
02 2
0 D
DE
+3%
EC
D EC 3
31
2 01
12
000 D
9
4
-14%
02
D EC
+302%
0
NYSE FANG+
16
31 2
01
7/
/ 29
FTSE techMARK 9
4
6,311
407
4,070
17
38
2
0
/5
7
UNICORNS
D E C 31 2 020
9
13
01
513
2
31
DEC
C
DE
+103%
31 2 0 2 0
-2%
TECH M&A REVIEW +17%6 7
UK TECH M&A
Highlights
DEALS (No.)
248
227
223
210
206
2020 was the strangest of years, clearly Central Banks are doing “whatever it
199
192
192
COVID-19 has had a massive impact, takes” to reduce the economic impact of
disrupting life globally. Health has risen the pandemic. As a result, interest rates
168
165
163
to the top of the agenda but with mass are at record lows and look set to remain
vaccinations being rolled out in 2021, at near zero for the foreseeable future.
124
there is light at the end of the tunnel. Many bonds are now negative yielding,
Microsoft Teams/Zoom and digital which has pushed more money into
working have clearly boosted the Tech riskier assets. The Technology sector has
sector, accelerating digital transformation
by years and enabling Tech M&A activity
again been a prime beneficiary. So, while
the FTSE fell 14% last year, remarkably
“bounce
UK tech deals also
back to near
to continue relatively unaffected. The the NASDAQ was up over 40% and the
report showcases the wide selection of FANG+ index doubled. While bond yields record highs – up Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
UK tech M&A deals that closed in 2020. stay super low, lofty valuations of growth
stocks are likely to persist.
6% in Q4 ” 2018 2019 2020
US 10-year bond yields are
currently 1%. The last tech
GLOBAL TECH In UK there were 711 Tech M&A deals
market wobble in 2H18 was There is clearly a bubble led by private
M&A DEALS (No.) in 2020. Despite all the Brexit and COVID
caused when these yields investors in some assets. Just look at uncertainty, that is similar to both 2017
increased to 3%. So, the bitcoin and valuations of Tesla, Airbnb, and 2018 and only a slight drop on 2019,
key to stretched valuations Zoom, Snowflake. Although the NASDAQ which was a record year. In fact, the
2547
2534
is low interest rates.
2486
PE of 25 is high, it is nowhere near dotcom recovery was so strong that 4Q20 was up
2379
2364
2331
2344
2326
2289
bubble valuations. IPO volumes remain 6% YoY in UK. The acceleration in digital
2263
2213
quite subdued but there have been a few working in the M&A process with video-
huge successes with record valuations conferencing, virtual data-rooms and
(Snowflake on 150x revenues) and the Cloud computing has been key.
“bounce
Global tech deals
1685
emergence of the SPAC which raised
UK Tech valuations continue to climb
back to near a whopping $79bn in 2020. On top of
towards 20x EBIT. Some valuations
record levels in Q4” this wave of cash, driven by FOMO, US
companies borrowed a record $2.5tn last
are significantly higher, particularly for
higher growth, Cloud-based software
year, driving leverage to an all-time high.
businesses, with Keysight, Byggfakta,
There is simply a tsunami of cheap funding
RELX, Elmo, Tracsis and Broadridge,
looking for a home. Many used these
Ideagen and Aptean all paying over 5x
funds to plug the hole created by COVID,
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 revenues for UK targets.
while others used the funds for M&A. As a
2018 2019 2020 result, there were 4,700 global tech M&A Accelerating digitalisation is ongoing and
deals in 2H20, up 4% YoY and three of the is at the core of much of the UK M&A
largest US deals were at valuation of more activity. In addition there are three main
than 30x revenues. drivers in UK Tech M&A:
TECH M&A REVIEW8 9
• Overseas acquirers now account adaptable to external changes – which is PRICE/EBIT SECTOR SPLIT
for a record high, representing 49% pretty handy in COVID. 2021 is the year of
24x
of all Tech deals in UK (up from 37% the Metal Ox, and its message couldn’t be
last year). Throughout 2020 we saw
significant activity in the UK from
clearer: Success will come to those who
work hard. Really hard. Oxen are reliable 22x “disconnect
Tech valuations
from
Aptean, MRI Software, Descartes, and strong working animals. That sounds
HelpSystems, Microsoft, Broadridge, encouraging, if a little dull. 20x
Comms sector”
Accenture and Keysight, alongside
Comms
some newer names like Byggfakta
18x
“
(Scandinavia) ELMO (Australia) and
MessageBird (Holland). Global Valuations
• Private equity
funded buy-and-
jump above 20x EBIT ” 16x
IT
build programs 14x
continued at pace, TECH M&A VALUATIONS – GLOBAL
notably: ClearCourse 2.5x 25x 12x
Partnership, Juniper
Education, Advanced,
10x
Access Group, Iris Price/revenue 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
and Civica. They (LHS)
seem to be pigging
2.0x 20x
out on a wave of
cheap money.
TECH M&A VALUATIONS – UK
• Restructuring. A 3.0x 28x
series of restructurings
started before
1.5x 15x
COVID-19 hit and is
Price/EBIT Price/EBIT
likely to continue as (RHS) 2.5x 23x
(RHS)
businesses refocus.
For example, in the UK
Babcock sold its cyber
arm, BT sold Tikit, and
European operations,
1.0x
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
10x
“also
UK Valuations
jump – now
2.0x 18x
and Capita have
exited its Education
We have a vaccine and we no longer have
approaching
and Legal software businesses to
reduce debt. Elsewhere Sage, Equiniti,
to deal with uncertainty of Brexit or ‘The
Donald’. Consequently, stock markets
20x EBIT ” 1.5x 13x
Admiral and Cobham have all sold
have rallied globally. Yet the pandemic is
non-core divisions. Price/revenue
worsening and political tension is rising (LHS)
Those who follow the Chinese zodiac in the US. What can possibly go wrong in 1.0x 8x
will know that last year was the Year of 2021? Best to keep your head down and 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
The Rat, an animal known to be highly work hard.
TECH M&A REVIEW10 11
UK TECH M&A – OVERSEAS ACQUIRERS
UK Tech M&A
two years. With interest
49%
rates remaining low and
significant funds raised
“ Foreign buyers jump
to nearly 50% of UK 36%
38%
37%
yet to be spent, this
is set to remain a key
”
2019 was a record year for UK Technology M&A
34% driver. We have seen
deals – a record 32%
a wave of PE backed
activity with the number of deals up a massive 20%.
So, against a very strong base, it is remarkable buy-and-build deals in
that, despite endless Brexit uncertainty and COVID the past few years and
lockdowns, activity recovered so quickly during 2020. that is unlikely to change
Having fallen by 50% YoY in in 2021.
Q2, by Q4 the market had Interest from buyers of
fully recovered; remarkably UK Tech companies
Q4 was 6% higher than UK TECH DEALS QUARTERLY CHANGE YoY
remains very strong.
244
303
254
280
324
338
2019, making it one of the +10% We ran an ICON Snap
most active quarters for UK Survey in the midst of
tech M&A deals ever. lockdown in May 2020.
0% 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 We asked all the Top
UK acquirers of 2019
–10% what their appetite for
“Bouncebackability” –20%
acquisitions was in 2020. Surprisingly,
100% of those responding indicated that
they were still
–30%
interested in
Despite COVID, Brexit, acquiring Tech
UK TECH M&A – PE/VC BACKED ACQUIRERS businesses
lockdowns and travel –40%
restrictions, cross-border in 2020.
deals accounted for a They weren’t
record high 48% of all deals –50% kidding. It was
in UK in 2020. Normally a busy year,
in economic downturns –60% despite its
Q1 2020 Q2 2020 Q3 2020 Q4 2020 23% 24% challenges.
overseas buyers tend to pull 23%
up the draw-bridge and re- 21%
focus. However, that was far 20%
from the case in 2020. In fact, the breadth of overseas
buyers has broadened considerably with significant
16%
new buyers from Australia, Scandinavia and Europe in
addition to the normal wave of US buyers.
Private equity funded acquisitions also remain one
122
166
153
171
211
162
of the key drivers behind tech M&A activity in 2020.
The total VC/PE backed acquisitions accounted for
23% of all deals in 2020, which is similar to the last
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
TECH M&A REVIEW12 13
Largest UK Tech M&A Targets in 2020
advisers, with Funds Under Management
EV £m PURCHASER TARGET EV / T/o (x) FinTech of £14bn. It has around 1,500 adviser
relationships and over 90,000 underlying
The biggest deal of the year was the customers. The acquisition gives M&G
34,000 9.2 the capability to offer third-party fund
announcement that S&P Global was
to acquire IHS Markit for £34bn or 9x management services, as well as ISA, SIPP
revenues. Consolidation in financial and GIA wrappers on a single platform.
30,000 22.0
information is leading to ever larger deal Shareholders clearly approved, as the
sizes, beating the £24bn acquisition of shares jumped after the announcement.
2,078 1.4 Refinitiv by London Stock Exchange last Interactive Investor acquired The Share
year. IHT Markit started life as Information Centre in a cash and shares deal worth
Handling Services, offering aerospace around £62m, the two companies had
890 9.4 engineers product catalogue databases. been in talks for some time. Again, it’s
It is fair to say that it has moved on since about gaining scale to sustain profits
then. The fact that the deal is an all-share with continued investment in the platform
850 2.3 merger around current share prices shows technology. Shareholders will be happy as
you where we are in the cycle though. Late. it’s a 41% premium to the pre-deal share
Broadridge has acquired FundsLibrary, price. Share Centre executive chairman
650 4.6
a leader in fund document and data Gavin Oldham said it would “transform”
dissemination from Hargreaves Lansdown. its business and work towards “a more
543 3.4 FundsLibrary’s services link fund managers egalitarian form of capitalism” in the
to distributors and investors to provide coming years.
information supporting fund sales. The Australian listed Bravura acquired
508 4.5 solution helps fund managers increase Delta Financial Systems for up to
distribution opportunities and comply with £23m which is 3.8x revenues for the
both UK domestic and EU regulations business that is growing 20-30%. Delta
400 4.0 such as Solvency II and MiFID II. The cost provides technology to power complex
of £53m equates to an impressive 7x pensions administration to support the
revenues or nearly 30x profits. administration of SIPPs and SSASs.
235 3.3
All the 2020 headlines in the payments Bravura is on a roll, having acquired
space were taken by mega deals from two companies in 2019 - FinoComp,
265 8.7 Worldine and Nexi (see below). In the UK, extending microservices offering to a
payment solutions firm Paypoint acquired broader wealth management market, and
card payments and terminal leasing Midwinter which has developed financial
110 13.8 businesses Handepay and Merchant planning software ‘AdviceOS’.
Rentals enabling it to reach into new SME
sectors - including groceries, hospitality,
“merging
107 4.1 food services and auto trade. At £70m the Crowdfunders are
”
valuation was over 4x revenues.
104 3.0 M&G acquired Royal London’s platform
business Ascentric, a leading digital wrap
and wealth management platform for
73 6.1
TECH M&A REVIEW14 15
Other deals that are notable are over 20 acquisitions, following others and-build factory focused mainly on the £27.3m to conveyancing client O’Neill
Euromoney Institutional Investor such as Redland Solutions, (RegTech) mid-market and is performing well with Patient Solicitors LLP. The valuation of
acquiring WealthEngine for $14.5m. and Optima Diagnostics (compliance) revenues and profits up nearly 50% last 3x revenues at 11x EBITDA is solid but
WealthEngine was a software-as-a- in 2019. To close the year with a bang, year. They completed eight deals in 2020 unspectacular, perhaps reflecting the sale
service (SaaS) platform that offered having raised nearly £50m to fund more up from six the prior year, backed by Hg to a large customer rather than a tech
intelligence and predictive analytics to deals in December, they went Xmas Capital and TA Associates. buyer.
wealth managers, luxury brands and not- shopping paying £28m or 2.8x revenues
In other deals: Levine Leichtman
for-profit organisations. In addition, there on Huddle, a collaboration and workflow
acquired BigHand (law firm workflow and
were deals from Infront AB, who acquired
order management software NB Trader,
platform for regulated industries. The
shares rose an impressive 40% in 2020. “moving
Advanced is productivity) from Bridgepoint and LDC.
and Crowdcube acquired Seedrs.
Ironically the crowdfunders are merging,
Mitratech, a US provider of legal
forward ” Thomson Reuters acquired CaseLines
which has a platform that provides a
and compliance software, acquired single, secure home in which to manage
rather than raising new capital!
ClusterSeven to boost its data privacy all types of legal evidence (400,000 trials
BT has sold its legal, accounting and
and information governance efforts. have used it). This effectively digitises
professional services software business
ClusterSeven, based in London, provides court processes by essentially eliminating
Tikit, which it acquired for more than
a solution for discovering, managing and paper and creating digital court files.
Legal and monitoring “Shadow IT” – the hidden,
£64m back in 2012. It was a strange deal
at the time and looks to have found a
Finally, Tenzing’s portfolio company
Compliance sensitive End User Computer (EUC)
applications, spreadsheets, data assets
better home in Advanced, who acquired
CTS has acquired two legal specialist
managed service providers, Sprout IT
Tikit in March. It is clearly non-core for
and other applications that lie outside of and City Business Solutions (CBS). Nigel
BT and continues the trend of large
IT’s control. Wright, CEO of CTS, commented: “These
“shares
Ideagen – 3 deals and
up 40% in 2020”
Access acquired Capita’s Eclipse Legal
Systems, for £56m. It had pre-tax profit
corporates exiting non-core assets to re-
focus. Advanced received funding in 2019
from PE (BC Partners, with Vista Equity
acquisitions underline our commitment to
the sector and to our mission to become a
legal sector powerhouse”.
of £5.5m last year, so looks like an Partners remaining an investor) and this
earnings multiple of 10, although oddly has accelerated their acquisitions having
Acquisitive AIM-listed, compliance and they announced it was quite a bit better acquired Careworks, Kirona and Oyez, to
risk management software specialist at 14x adjusted EBITDA. That shows how name a few.
Ideagen had a very busy 2020. Firstly, it
acquired health & safety e-learning brand
buyer and seller can see the same deal
Dye & Durham (legal software), who
Property Related
differently.
Workrite from ergonomics company only recently listed in Toronto, acquired
Posturite for a net cash consideration The money from the sale will be used Property Information Exchange (“PIE“),
of £6.8m. That equates to about 4x
revenues or about 10 forward profits.
to strengthen Capita’s balance sheet.
Access also acquired legal specialist, DPS
for £31m. Operating under the trade name
“poweredbypie” it offers a Cloud-based “Getting a lot Bygga”
Its SaaS-based e-learning courses and Software who were founded way back in real estate due diligence platform for
applications help employers meet legal 1988 and provide SaaS-based Practice conveyancing. PIE was majority owned LDC and the Royal Institute of British
regulations, including first aid, equality and Management software for legal practices by MML Capital Partners. Matt Proud, Architects (RIBA) have sold NBS to
diversity. Ideagen then acquired quality and In-house legal departments. Access Chief Executive Officer of Dye & Durham, Swedish based Byggfakta Group,
management software provider Qualsys didn’t stop there as they also acquired said: “in an increasing virtual business a data and software provider to the
for £15m in August and although it is a three businesses in Asia (a division of world, the dependency on mission critical European construction industry.
punchy valuation at over 5x ARR, it reflects Sage for £90m or 2x revenue, Unleashed Cloud-based software like PIE’s has never Byggfakta are backed by private equity
its strong momentum (ARR is growing at Software and Attache) all in financial/ been greater, as more and more people firms Stirling Square Capital Partners
nearly 40% pa) and the fact that there are accounting and payroll. Access Group work from home.” Also ULS Technology and TA Associates. This was their first
cost synergies. Ideagen have now made is another successful PE owned buy- PLC sold Conveyancing Alliance for UK deal. Headquartered in Newcastle,
TECH M&A REVIEW16 17
NBS combines the best content and GroupBC has an interesting back story. payments of £20m will be made over
connectivity for anyone involved in the
design, supply and construction of
Formerly known as Business Collaborator,
it launched over 20 years ago as part of
Transport And a period of 3.5 years. It equates to 3x
revenues. Digital Application developed
the built environment. NBS previously Enviros Environmental Consulting. It has Logistics logistics software Matflo but has taken
acquired SCL Schumann and EzySpec since been owned by CodaSciSys, then a while as it was founded back in 1971.
in Australia. Hard on the heels of this demerged, and acquired by Unit4 Agresso Digital Applications and Dematic
deal, Byggfakta acquired Glenigan arm
of Ascential for £73m in December.
before a YFM funded £4m MBO in 2014.
YFM Equity Partners generated a return “significant
Aptean makes a
move”
(previously Demag) know what they are
getting into as they have worked together
Glenigan focuses on sales leads and “well in excess of 3x” for its investors. for 25 years. Dematic is part of £5bn
marketing information, market analysis, German listed group Kion.
Although Barclays CEO, Jes Staley, said:
forecasting, and company intelligence for
“The notion of putting 7,000 people in US based Aptean, made a significant Two years ago, LDC made a £20m
the construction sector. Valuation was 6x
a building may be a thing of the past”, move in March, acquiring Dorking investment in Mandata who provide
revenues and a reasonable-sounding 11x
no-one seems to have told MRI Software based Paragon Software Systems, a software solutions for the transport and
adjusted EBITDA.
which is fast becoming a leader in real market-leading provider of transportation logistics industry. The company offers
Westbridge acquired the bulk of Eque2 estate software solutions, through an management software solutions serving transport management software that
in December for £46m buying out LDC aggressive acquisition programme. In the food and beverage, distribution and manages road haulage business and
and others. Eque2 supplies business March it acquired Orchard Information retail industries. Its software manages has fleet tracking, telematics as well as
management software to more than Systems, a provider of software solutions routing, logistics, scheduling, and home other related solutions. In June, Mandata
2,700 customers in the construction, for the UK social housing sector, with delivery. made their first acquisition acquiring
housebuilding and contracting industries. locations in Newcastle and Donegal. Essex based ReturnLoads which is an
Founded in 1991, Paragon has more than
Eque2 made three acquisitions recently: Shortly before being acquired Orchard, online marketplace for hauliers and freight
4,700 systems deployed globally and is
Miracle Dynamics, JNC Solutions and CliP itself previously unacquisitive, made a forwarders. The platform helps hauliers
growing rapidly. William Salter, Managing
IT Solutions. It also apparently developed rare purchase, buying Internetalia, a improve their productivity by reducing the
Director of Paragon, said: “In joining
the first Cloud-based job costing system maintenance software business. MRI amount they travel without cargo.
the Aptean family, we are excited by the
in the construction industry. Software then acquired Castleton, the
opportunity to accelerate innovation, In February, US listed Descartes Systems
UK listed social-housing focused software
advance product development, expand acquired Peoplevox, a Cloud-based
provider. Castleton has revenues of
geographically and tap into its best ecommerce warehouse management
“advancement
Here’s to digital twins £23m (down 12%) and so the £83m price
practice frameworks”. Aptean was formed solution. Jonathan Bellwood founded
”
equates to 3.6x revenues and a 40%+
by the merger of CDC and Consoma back Peoplevox in 2009 following eight years
premium on its share price. That seems a
in 2012 and is now focused on supply at Zebra Technologies. Based in London
pretty full price for a business with falling
chain, ERP and compliance software. they serve B2C ecommerce customers
revenues that is still migrating to the
It has developed a healthy appetite connecting webshop front ends. The
US giant, AEC software vendor Bentley Cloud. Having made over 30 acquisitions,
for acquisitions having bought seven business translates order information into
Systems announced twins as it acquired funded by PE investors including TA
companies in the past two years including a mobile-driven pick and pack process
Reading based GroupBC. Simon Horsley, Associates and Vista, MRI is approaching
UK-listed Sanderson for just over £90m within the warehouse and then feeds
UK regional executive for Bentley Systems, $300m in revenues. Competitors face a
(2.5x revs). Aptean is ultimately controlled parcel delivery systems for shipment
said: “Our many UK users, projects, and tough decision to compete or sell to them.
by funds managed by TA Associates and execution. Descartes paid £19m.
owners, in common with GroupBC, will gain
Vista Equity Partners.
a lot from our joining forces to advance In June Descartes acquired Newcastle-
Common Data Environment (CDEs) Logistics and supply chain automation based Cracking Logistics (aka
through digital twins”. Wes Simmons, CEO is hot. Dematic acquired Digital Kontainers) for £9.5m (circa 6x revenues)
of GroupBC, added: “Here’s to BC CDE Applications for £104m in March with of which 50% was paid upfront, with the
and digital twins advancement!”. £85m in cash paid at closing. Further balance to be paid in a two year earn-out
TECH M&A REVIEW18 19
based on future revenues. Kontainers many people working from home, it is a and confirm that devices are operating
digital freight platform offers quoting,
booking, tracking and dashboard
tough time to be in the public transport
sector right now.
Hardware ‘as designed’ for functional safety and
cybersecurity purposes.
analytics. “The last few months have Much has been written about Softbank’s
With the wave of M&A activity in the Motorola acquired UK-listed IndigoVision
shown how quickly the world can change, proposed sale of ARM to Nvidia in a
sector, it is perhaps a surprise that for just under £30m which equates to 0.7x
and the shift to digitization is accelerating complex deal for circa £30bn ($40bn),
Kerridge Commercial Systems (KCS) revenues and 17x EBIT. IndigoVision is
as a result,” said Edward J. Ryan, having only acquired it in 2016 for $31bn.
did not join the party in 2020. Previously, based in Edinburgh and designs, develops,
Descartes’ CEO. Despite its WeWork losses, Softbank
KCS (ERP and supply chain solutions) manufactures, and sells networked IP
had made 11 acquisitions since Accel- actually recovered strongly in 2020 video security systems. The price of 405p
KKR’s investment in 2015. Notable deals with its shares at near record highs as a share seems really attractive given that
“cracking
Descartes get a
deal”
included Electronic Data Processing
(EDP) for £12m, Insphire (heavy plant
a result of its portfolio shuffling and
aggressive tech investing. This is the
it has spent most of the past six months at
about half that valuation, so shareholders
software) and MAM Software for $155m. largest semi-conductor deal ever, pipping will be very happy - unless they were
the Broadcom deal back in 2016. A UK unlucky to have bought at the top of the
Good Energy Group, the 100% markets regulator review could yet derail it. dotcom bubble when it reached £13, albeit
UK-listed, transport software and renewable electricity supplier and energy
South Korean listed Hanwha Systems very briefly.
services company Tracsis acquired services provider has taken control of
iBlocks for a maximum of £21m, which Zap-Map’s parent company, Next Green acquired UK antenna maker Phasor
is a very attractive looking 7x revenues Car. Zap-Map is an app for the UK’s Solutions out of administration in June.
or 19x profits. iBlocks, established in fast-growing 300,000 electric vehicle Phasor Solutions’ proprietary technologies
2000, specialises in the provision of a (EV) drivers - planning routes, identifying include flat electronically steered antennas
for use on aircraft, maritime, trains and
Cybersecurity
full-cycle of smart ticketing solutions, charge points, checking their availability,
including the development of mission and sharing power. With more than military vehicles. It’s an exciting market, Founder Keith Bloodworth has sold
critical back-office systems used by the 250,000 app downloads, and 100,000 supporting connectivity over Low Earth CNL Software, which develops Physical
Rail Delivery Group, the wider community registered users, Zap-Map (based in Orbit satellites with wireless Internet Security Information Management (PSIM)
of train operating companies (TOCs), Bristol) is used by a significant amount of services like video streaming on planes, and software for the homeland defence
and the rail supply chain. The acquisition the fully electric EV market. autonomous vehicle telematics. Phasor’s sector. The 19-year-old company
consideration comprised an initial cash parent was about to close a significant provides situation management and
payment of £12.5m plus a three year earn- funding round in March but, unluckily for web-based video monitoring software to
out paying a further £8.5m on reaching them, that was pulled due to COVID-19 and protect physical assets such as HQs. Its
profit targets. In a post Covid-19 world, MOST ACTIVE SECTORS – 2020 the resulting chaos in the airline sector. software offers risk management, security
smart ticketing and contactless payment • Cloud Comms Siemens has announced the surveillance, facilities management, and
will only accelerate. environmental and danger zone monitoring
• Payments acquisition of Cambridge, based
UltraSoC Technologies, a provider of services. It was acquired for £28m (approx.
In September, London based GoMedia • Ed Tech 3x revenues) by US based Everbridge,
was acquired by Icomera, (which is owned instrumentation and analytics solutions that
• Prop Tech put intelligent monitoring, cybersecurity which is a $3bn listed US group that was
by ENGIE the large French energy group).
GoMedia provides passenger Wi-Fi for • Legal Tech and functional safety capabilities into the founded in 2002 in the aftermath of the
• IT Managed Services core hardware of system-on-chip (SoC). tragic events of 9/11 with the mission of
public transport and was founded in 2015
UltraSoC is a pioneer of embedding ‘helping to keep people safe amid critical
by former Sky executives Matt Seaman • Payments situations’. They have a Critical Event
and Roger Matthews. GoMedia has monitoring hardware into complex
• Data Analytics SoCs to enable ‘fab-to-field’ analytics Management platform. With the number
rapidly established itself as the world’s
leading provider of onboard infotainment • CX capabilities, designed to accelerate silicon of IoT devices expected to approach
• Logistics / Supply chain bring-up, optimise product performance, 75bn by 2025, Everbridge’s Critical
for public transport. However, with so
TECH M&A REVIEW20 21
Event Management platform enables Charlesbank and TA Associates onto model. During ECI’s involvement, Arkessa
organisations to utilise vast amounts of
electronic data, including IoT sensors, to
its share register last year. In June
they acquired Boldon James a data “bolted
The horse has not only
but the barn door has
acquired Netherlands-based Sim Services
in August 2020.
digitally transform how they manage the classification and secure messaging
safety and security of their assets. It might solutions business, from defence business been left swinging” Reading-based Ascent Software has
acquired Purepoint, a London-based
have been useful on Capitol Hill recently! Qinetiq. It was acquired for £30m which
software development provider focused on
is a reasonable sounding 3.3x revenues
the IoT market. At 1.5x 2020’s estimated
and is actually similar to the amount that
“gobbling
Historically, UK Regulators have adopted a revenues, the multiples look quite low.
Accenture is hungry, Qinetiq paid 13 years ago. In March,
fairly liberal approach to Tech-based M&A Purepoint CEO Alex James, who founded
HelpSystems also acquired penetration
up another 28 testing software platform Cobalt Strike
activity, waving through major sales such the IoT business in 2011, has built it to over
companies in 2020” to expand the company’s cybersecurity
as ARM without too much delay, although 25 people and joins Ascent as group CTO.
UK regulators have belatedly taken an It is another PE-backed buy-and-build
business. Cobalt Strike describes their
interest in the ARM deal. Inevitably it of a relatively small business with sector
business as threat emulation software,
may slow down deals in certain sensitive specialism. Horizon Capital invested in
In March, Accenture acquired Context executing targeted attacks against
sectors, and it may make it tougher to do Ascent, a provider of custom software
Information Security, a UK-based enterprises with ‘one of the most powerful
some cross-border trade deals with exotic development enabling digital transformation,
cybersecurity consultancy from its parent network attack kits available to penetration
buyers, but shouldn’t impact many US/UK in November 2019, backing CEO Stewart
company Babcock International Group. testers. This is not compliance testing’.
deals or private equity buyers. Smythe (ex Adapt which was acquired by
Context was founded in 1998 and has its HelpSystems has been steadily beefing up
Rackspace) in a £30m transaction.
HQ in London. Babcock acquired Context its cybersecurity presence acquiring two
back in 2013 for £32m which equated to companies last year – including Reading-
a heady 3x revenues back then and is still based data loss prevention (DLP) provider
pretty high for a consulting business. They ClearSwift (from RUAG). IoT / AI and “Thingalytics. Is that a thing?”
offer high-end cyber defence, intelligence,
vulnerability research and incident
Increased UK Government regulation over Machine Learning
M&A activity in sensitive industries is set
response services. Babcock sold Context
to increase. Legislation will enable the UK Cognizant acquired Inawisdom, an Ipswich In June, US listed Keysight Technologies
for £107m (4x revenues) making a chunky
Government to review mergers involving based AI and data analytics consultancy acquired Eggplant, a software test
profit. Having grown to 250 staff at £0.4m
foreign buyers in three sectors considered just before Christmas. Cognizant had a busy automation platform provider that uses
per member of staff, it was no bargain and
to be central to national security: time acquiring nine companies in 2020 and, artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics to
equates to an EBIT multiple of about 50x.
despite their huge size, acquired Inawisdom automate test creation and execution. It was
Accenture is an acquisition machine and
• Artificial intelligence (AI),
acquired from The Carlyle Group for $330m
• Cryptographic authentication which has just 60 staff and £10m revenues.
acquired an impressive 28 companies in They are growing rapidly but importantly which equates to a very attractive sounding
2020 (24 in 2019) including Symantec’s
• Advanced materials
9x revenues. London headquartered
have their own Rapid Analytics and Machine
Cyber Security Services business bought The thresholds are very low with revenues Learning platform (RAMP), based on AWS. Eggplant was founded by John Bates
for $200m, adding 300 staff (or equivalent of £1m and/or market share of 25%. Such who might know a thing or two about IoT
to £0.5m per member of staff). Although a move is understandable (particularly IoT connectivity provider Arkessa was having written the book ‘Thingalytics:
Accenture has revenues of $30bn it as relationships with China/Russia cool). sold to Wireless Logic in December, Smart Big Data Analytics for The Internet
continues to acquire smaller digital However, after the wave of foreign buyers giving ECI a 2.1x return in two years. of Things’. Eggplant enables organisations
consultancies with 50-100 staff to increase shopping in the UK over the past decade, Arkessa offers world-wide, world-class to test, monitor, analyse, and report on the
exposure to the digital economy. there is a feeling that the horse has not cellular connectivity services that make it quality and responsiveness of software
only bolted but the barn door has been left easy to design, deploy and manage IoT applications across different interfaces,
HelpSystems has been an increasingly devices securely, efficiently, and at scale,
swinging! platforms, browsers and devices, including
aggressive acquirer since it took regardless of application or business mobile, IoT, desktop, and mainframe.
TECH M&A REVIEW22 23
In June RWS Holdings (IP support process improvement and overall innovation services provider that addresses the IT (2020). ScholarPack and Arbor service
services and localisation) acquired comes from business end users”. Build bot skills gap by finding, training and placing over 2,000 schools and have built scale
Iconic Translation Machines and and automate, simples. job-ready technology talent in roles with rapidly in a fast-consolidating sector.
Webdunia for up to $41m of which $10m leading corporations worldwide. Valuation
Civica announced the acquisition of digital
is deferred. Iconic is based in Dublin and was a healthy 3x revenues. “Wiley is
learning management specialist Agylia.
specialises in developing neural machine committed to bridging the gap between
West Country-based, Agylia may be pretty
translation (NMT) solutions. It uses
machine translation (MT) and artificial
EdTech education output and industry need,” said
Brian Napack, President and CEO of Wiley.
small with circa 50 employees but it has
an impressive client list including Health
intelligence (AI) in the application of
With schools and universities everywhere Education England, National Grid and
language technology. Iconic was valued at
“Big consolidation in EdTech”
being forced to move online, it has Microsoft. The Learning Management
8-16x revenues, depending on earn-out.
significantly accelerated the move to System enables the delivery of both digital
Webdunia a translations services business
remote learning and attracted M&A and blended learning and mobile apps.
was valued at only 1.5x revenues, as it is
activity as providers tussle to gain an There would seem to be good synergy with
more of a translation services business. Horizon Capital created Juniper Education
edge. As a result, we have seen a wave of a newly launched product to support a
Not content with that, shortly afterwards when it acquired EES for Schools as a
consolidation: mobile workforce of carers with videos and
RWS acquired SDL in a large share-based buy-and-build platform investment in July
podcasts given Civicas deep relationships
deal worth £809m (around 2x revenues). Capita has sold its Education Software 2019. It is in a hurry, having previously
in the Heath sector. Civica also acquired
The lowish valuation on SDL reflects its Solutions (ESS) business to Montagu tucked in OTrack, Classroom Monitor
Equiniti’s HR and payroll business which
bigger services element – for example they Private Equity for up to £400m, which is and Maze Education, all of which provide
should add £6m revenue and £1.7m to its
own Donnelly Language Schools. approximately 4x revenues, as it continues analytics platforms to help schools track
2020 EBITDA.
its clear out. Some had expected the price pupil progress. In 2020 they acquired
to be higher but, as Jon Lewis, Capita’s school management information system IRIS Software acquired school
“automate,
Build bot and Chief Executive Officer, said: “ESS is a (MIS) and pupil analytics provider Pupil management system provider iSAMS
”
business that Capita originally bought for Asset and then in September announced which supports core school functions
simples £10m so we have created significant value the acquisition of FS4S, which provides including admissions, academic reporting
over 25 years of ownership.” Good point schools, academies and trusts with finance, and tracking, examinations, wellbeing,
Jon. The SIMS management information payroll and HR management services. communication, HR, fee billing and
In May Microsoft acquired London based system has apparently struggled to Juniper then acquired SISRA, a specialist accounting in over 1,000 schools.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software develop its Cloud-based proposition. in data analytics for over 1,650 secondary
provider Softomotive from investor Grafton Nonetheless, it has a massive market schools, academies and trusts. Its analytics
Capital, which only invested less than two share of nearly 75%. It is facing increasing are used to evaluate exam performance.
years ago. Softomotive has developed
WinAutomate which helps more than 9,000
competition from Cloud-based offerings,
and the big consolidation that is happening
With the huge disruption to schools and
students in 2020 due to COVID-19 these
Human Capital
customers automate business processes in the sector driven by M&A deals (see analytics will be in strong demand. Management Tech
across legacy and modern desktop below). Interestingly, Montagu also bought
The Key claims it is now the second largest
applications. Together with Microsoft’s ParentPay which focuses on school Advanced acquired employee
provider of MIS to schools in England,
Power Automate, WinAutomation will payments, income management, parental engagement software Clear Review.
overtaking RM, but it is still a long way
provide customers additional options engagement and cashless catering. The Founded in 2016 by Sony’s former
behind Capita’s old division ESS. The Key
for RPA desktop authoring, so anyone synergies between the two are clear under International HR Director Stuart
acquired MIS provider Arbor Education
can build a bot and automate Windows- owners with deep pockets. Hearn, Clear Review has a Continuous
which was founded in 2011 by James
based tasks. As CEO Marios Stavropoulos Performance Management platform that is
US-listed John Wiley acquired mthree Weatherill and Emile Axelrad. The Key
explained: “Since less than two percent tailored for a remote working environment
from ECI Partners for £98m. mthree is have already acquired WebBased (2016),
of the world population can write code, to engage and support workforces
a rapidly growing (20%pa) education ScholarPack (2018) and GovernorHub
we believe the greatest potential for both
TECH M&A REVIEW24 25
TOP UK BUYERS SINCE JAN 2018
wherever they are. Its Cloud HR solution max of 7.4x ARR and a punchy 33x EBITDA
now supports the entire employee lifecycle
from recruitment to retirement.
but they are also growing rapidly. ELMOs
M&A team is on fire but the shares are “a ClearCourse –
clear winner”
22
pretty flat in the past three years.
Advanced also acquired £24m revenue 19
workforce management software specialist In other deals, Allocate Software acquired
Mitrefinch from LDC. Established way back Lincoln-based Selenity, which provides ClearCourse Partnership
12
in 1979, Mitrefinch provides products across Cloud-based HR and finance process is the most acquisitive
T&A, payroll, HR and access control with management software, in particular to company in UK, and to be
analytic capability. The company supports health and care organisations. In July honest it’s difficult to keep 10
4,400 customers enabling them to increase Field Service Management Software up with the number of deals
productivity and manage their workforce company Totalmobile acquired both Lone they have done. Backed by
9
effectively. Mitrefinch helps organisations Worker Solutions (LWS) and Software US-based Aquiline Partners,
spend their time on what matters most. Enterprises (known as Global Rostering their target companies are
Gordon Wilson, CEO of Advanced System (GRS)). LWS provides access to focused on membership
commented: “Digital technology provides safety alerts, status updates and locational organisations and they help
accuracy of data to enable rapid decision- information to support staff who are their customers to manage their members
making in shifting market conditions which
is a vital tool for companies managing shift
operating in high risk environments or
undertaking sensitive activities, customers
and administer their business workflow.
The plan is to automate and monetise
Information
patterns and measuring critical output.” include Network Rail, Mitie and Centrica. their payment processes too. In 2020 Management
deals included: Felinesoft (Microsoft
software development) and Hart Square Digitisation and the explosion of data from
“ ELMO’s on fire ” Cloud Software
(CRM consultancy), Assisi (vet practice
management), FLG a CRM provider for
IoT, AI and ML has created strong demand
for data intelligence solutions to capture,
SMEs, Swan (retail management) and analyse and visualise huge amounts of
Australian listed ELMO Software acquired Garage Data Systems (workshops). That information. This has created another
Swedish based Hexagon AB acquired
Breathe for a total of £22 million; an initial takes deals closed to 22 in two years, nearly wave of M&A activity and consolidation.
Farnham based CAEfatigue, a provider
£18m in cash and shares plus an earnout one a month. Impressive, and we see no fall Examples of key deals were:
of mechanical fatigue simulation
for an additional £4m. Breathe develops in their appetite.
solutions used to improve manufacturing In August BAE Systems strengthened
and sells HR software to SMEs. It has more
product design, quality, and reliability. its technology and data portfolio, buying
than 6,700 customers and targets the
Fatigue analysis of a digital twin enables Techmodal, a Bristol-based data
market direct and through HR Consultants.
It recently launched a rota management
manufacturers and engineers to predict in-
service durability and improve quality before
“areTheallTop 5 UK acquirers
PE backed”
consultancy and digital services company.
With 120 employees and 30 associates,
solution to help small business juggling
production starts. Its solutions are used by it has contracts with the MOD in support
the challenges posed by COVID-19. The
global manufacturers across automotive of the UK’s armed forces, particularly the
valuation is a significant 6x revenues but
and aerospace and are interoperable Army, Strategic Command and Royal Navy.
reflects the highly recurrent income and Jonas has been quietly acquiring
with leading computer-aided engineering Its services include the Data Integration
30% growth rate. companies for a number of years. Owned
(CAE) packages. Hexagon President and Platform to view, manage and exploit data
by Constellation the business focuses on
Late in December ELMO also acquired CEO Ola Rollén said: “Not only do these provided by multiple systems on aircraft
verticals, particularly in public sector. It
Oxford based Webexpenses, (Cloud- technologies provide a valuable addition to carriers.
has now made 100 acquisitions in total.
based expense management) for £20m our Smart Factory solutions portfolio, but
In 2020, in the UK, it acquired Bluestar In July, Qinetiq acquired Manchester based
in a mix of cash shares and earn out. They they also enhance our portfolio of Smart
(blue light software), and Contronics (lab Naimuri (agile Cloud-based services and
focus on the mid-market. ELMO paid a Industrial Facility solutions”.
monitoring). technology to the UK Intelligence and Law
TECH M&A REVIEW26 27
Enforcement communities). At a cost of of the industrial software supplier is now a portfolio of web content but still owns as people stay home, but it is an ambitious
£25m it is 2.8x revenues (12x profits). The approaching 10x revenues. It made a PC Gamer, Homes and Gardens and Golf expansion programme. Have they bitten off
deal comes just a month after they sold big move in August buying out Softbank Monthly. CEO, Zillah Byng-Thorne has more than they can chew?
Boldon James, a data classification and and paying a chunky 10x revenues for overseen a period of significant growth
HUT Group only listed in September but
secure messaging solutions business to OSIsoft, a real-time industrial operational including the £140m acquisition of TI
made a significant move in December,
HelpSystems. It was acquired for £30m data software supplier at a cost of $5bn. Media (titles like Country Life and Cycling
acquiring Dermstore a US skin care online
which is a reasonable sounding 3.3x OSIsoft is a data driven business that Weekly) in April. In November she launched
retailer, and two smaller nutrition suppliers
revenues and is actually similar to the makes software that captures data from a £594m bid for price comparison site
for a chunky $430m. Dermstore was
amount that Qinetiq paid 13 years ago. ships, chemical boilers, power plants and GoCo and perhaps its no surprise that the
acquired at 2x revenues and increases
other facilities in industries including oil and deal is 75% payable in shares when the
its US market share for the fast-growing
gas, mining, pulp and paper and water. “It Future share price has nearly doubled from
“10xRELX and Aveva pay
revenues”
will accelerate the Enlarged Group’s role in
the digitisation of the industrial world, which
low in March and is valued at 8x revenues
- almost double GoCo’s valuation. Zillah
online retailer.
RELX is re-inventing itself from a publisher
is being driven by a need for sustainability,
the industrial internet of things, Cloud, data
visualisation and artificial intelligence,”
aims to provide ‘complementary insights
that enable consumers to make informed
choices in their passions, interests and key
“Pretty good timing”
to a business and data information and Aveva’s CEO Craig Hayman said. purchasing decisions’. It’s a big move and
Boohoo (online fashion retailer) was
analytics provider through a series of re-invents Future, but shareholders seem
Geospatial information provider Envitia having a terrific lockdown and its shares
chunky and mainly US acquisitions. It sold less convinced looking at the recent fall in
has completed MBO to Maven valuing it bounced strongly having more than
Farmers Weekly, its last remaining trade its share price.
at circa 2x revenues. It has been around doubled since March, although things then
magazine in 2019. In 1H20 they acquired
for 30 years so is certainly well established Feedr (meal delivery to office workers) soured a little with supply chain issues,
Arizona-based Emailage (fraud prevention)
with large defence clients and an ambitious has been acquired by Compass Group showing that timing is everything. Taking
for $480m and paid $375m to buy San
growth agenda to expand into new sectors for a rumoured $24m to use the platform advantage of the high shares, they raised
Diego-based ID Analytics, adding to its
and further develop its data discovery to serve its own corporate client base. more equity and tidied up their structure
earlier $817m deal for ThreatMetrix (digital
platform using AI and Machine Learning. It was valued at just £2.8m prior to a by acquiring the remaining 33% of Pretty
identity). Using machine learning, its own
crowdfunding round in June 2018. So it’s Little Thing for £330m from founder
data and its network of partner companies,
a great price but lockdown would not have Umar Kamani, valuing it at £1bn. That
Emailage can predict fraud using email
been good for Feedr’s business. compares with the valuation of just £5m
addresses and online identities, while
ThreatMetrix tracks around 1.2bn people eCommerce when Boohoo bought its original 66% of
PrettyLittleThing back in 2014. Pretty nice.
worldwide, looking at digital patterns
to assess risks. In August RELX also
added SciBite, a semantic AI company
Admiral sold confused.com and other
assets to ZPG in a £500m cash deal that
“offJust Eat – have they bitten
more than they can chew?”
headquartered in Cambridge, which helps accelerates ZPG’s consolidation of the
life science customers make faster, more sector, having acquired both Zoopla and Communications
effective R&D decisions through advanced USwitch. The valuation was a chunky at
Just Eat Takeaway.com was formed with
text and data intelligence solutions. It’s 19x profits or 4x revenues and is another In December, US-based Dubber acquired
an all-share merger of UK based Just Eat
a business that’s not shy in paying up for restructuring as Admiral refocuses on UK mobile recording business Speik for
with Dutch based Takeaway.com for £10bn
targets, having paid £65m, which is over 10x its core insurance business. Given the £20m or nearly 3x revenues. Speik is a
in January 2020. Then, in June, it acquired
revenues for SciBite. impending FCA drive to end price walking leading provider of PCI compliance and
Grubhub, the US based online food delivery
it’s potentially a good time to exit. call recording solutions and is a merger of
Aveva shares have doubled since the operator, for $7.3bn in shares to create a
Voxygen and Aeriandi. Aeriandi offers PCI
start of 2019 and are now valued at just Future PLC, the UK listed media business global online food delivery giant. That’s
compliance solutions, in conjunction with
shy of £8bn. As a result, the valuation has evolved from computer magazines to tremendous timing given the COVID-19 crisis
TECH M&A REVIEW28 29
Gamma and Vodafone. Voxygen supplied on a path to an increasingly cloud-native having been demerged from Carphone markets for over 40 years. The valuation of
hardware recording solutions to O2 future”. The 800-strong team will help Warehouse, and having earlier acquired 5x revenues or 15x estimated 2020 EBITDA
amongst others. Microsoft’s push into Cloud telephony. Tiscali and Pipex to build scale. It is yet reduces to 12x when adjusted for the tax
COVID-19 had minimal impact on another privatised UK company falling to benefit. The Radios business was expected
Also in December, UK-listed Halma
Microsoft’s performance; it delivered overseas PE investors. In 2020, TalkTalk to generate revenue of approximately
acquired Wolverhampton-based Static
revenue growth of 15% in their Q3. Its sold FibreNation to Goldman Sachs $125mso valuation is a lot lower at nearer
Systems for £37m or nearly 2x revenues.
commercial Cloud arm, including Azure, backed CityFibre Infrastructure for £200m. 2x revenues. It has strong growth potential
It is a designer, manufacturer and installer
Office 365, Dynamics, was up 39%. If CityFibre has ambitions to challenge underpinned by US Department of Defense
of critical communication systems,
the likes of Openreach and Virgin Media and NATO mandates for cryptographic and
which enables hospital patients to alert
nationwide, then this will be a useful anti-jamming modernisation of software
healthcare specialists in an emergency.
US-listed Affluence acquired Nottingham
based Flexiscale and its platform Flexiant
“Cloud
Microsoft pushes deeper into
telephony”
addition of scale on that journey. However,
Harrogate, Ripon, Knaresborough and
Dewsbury are not the heartbeat of the
defined radios.
in June. As James Honan, Jr. Affluence’s
CEO explained: “Flexiant is a leading
nation’s fibre network. Good timing though,
as the demand for home broadband in “Cloud communications is hot”
Cloud orchestration business and provides In February US-listed Medallia (CX lockdown must have jumped.
solutions aimed solely at helping (telco) management), acquired Liverpool based Cisco acquired UK-listed Cloud
Wiltshire-based Vysiion Group has
service providers capture the Cloud LivingLens for £20m. The video feedback communications provider IMImobile
been acquired by Exponential-e. The
market opportunity”. Rajinder Basi, CEO platform is high growth and interesting as it for £543m. Its Cloud communications
communications infrastructure and
of Flexiant said: “We believe that the ‘humanises feedback and brings the voice platform is a CX provider helping
outsourced IT service provider has been
Flexiscale technology will change the of the customer and employee to life’. businesses to communicate with their
taken over by Exponential-e, a Cloud,
datacentre paradigm as we know it today. customers on mobile/WhatsApp and
LivingLens gives businesses insight into network and unified communications
The technology is based on our nano similar platforms; reaching beyond the
customers’ and employees’ feelings, company. The deal sees the exit of BGF –
nodes which enables the mass reduction contact centre and traditional routes which
wants and needs. “Video feedback is which invested £4m in 2015 and returned
in footprint so the datacentre can exist in is increasingly important in a fragmented
one of the most powerful innovations in over 3x their investment. Founder Bruce
a Nano-Cloud at the tower base station remote workplace. Valuation is 3.4x
experience management today. Video Brain said: “The business is well placed to
or be expanded to create micro-Clouds revenues and is yet another cross-border
brings 6x more feedback signals than text further build upon its strategy of utilising
or metro-Clouds by stringing multiple acquisition depleting the stock of sizeable
responses,” said Carl Wong, CEO. With its strong reputation within the utilities
nodes together using Flexiant, our edge UK listed tech companies. Shareholders
3.5bn smartphone users and 54% of all market of delivering and supporting Critical
orchestration software”. Leading edge. will be happy as the shares jumped nearly
mobile brand experiences being video and National Infrastructure (CNI)”. Patience
50% on the announcement.
image-based it is clearly a big potential is sometimes a handy attribute and it
market. Then, in April, Medallia completed certainly was here as Bruce Brain started In a similar vein, MessageBird, the $3bn
“ Nano clouds in Nottingham ” the circle by acquiring the US speech-to-
text platform, Voci Technologies. Voci’s
Vysiion way back in 1971, which was the
year the microprocessor was invented and
omnichannel Cloud communications
platform acquired London-based real-
artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning the first pocket calculator was released by time web technologies company Pusher
capabilities used by contact centres Texas Instruments. for £26m or a very similar valuation to
Microsoft acquired London based
provides feedback from customer calls IMImobile at 3.3x revenues. Its focus is
Metaswitch Networks a virtualisation BAE Systems acquired Collins Aerospace’s
including emotion, sentiment and voice on in-app notifications and a developer-
provider for telcos which has heavyweight Military GPS business for $1.9bn and
biometric identity. friendly API and SDKs built around ‘push’,
investors such as Sequoia and Francisco. Raytheon’s Airborne Tactical Radios
for Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Line
As Microsoft explained: “As the industry UK-listed TalkTalk Telecom agreed a business for $275m. The GPS business
and WeChat. The company has delivered
moves to 5G, operators will have £1.5bn exit to PE group Tosca and others is the leading provider of mission critical
over 18 trillion messages across thousands
opportunities to advance the virtualisation at a 26% premium to its share price or military GPS receiver solutions and has
of apps for its customers.
of their core networks and move forward 1.4x revenues. It has a colourful history been a pioneer in US military GPS receiver
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