Mergers & Acquisitions

Atlanta, Munich, Berlin – Sharecare, a digital health and wellness engagement platform founded by Dr. Mehmet Oz and Jeff Arnold, has acquired Feingold Technologies, a developer of innovative technologies that analyse and understand human mindsets and behaviours.

London & Cambridge, UK – AlertMe announced on Friday it has agreed the sale of the company to British Gas (part of the Centrica plc group) in a deal said to be worth UK£65 million (US$100 million). This news follows on the heels of ARM’s purchase of Offspark, a Dutch IoT communications security company.

Amsterdam, Netherlands. January 8, 2015 – Digital security specialists, Gemalto, today announced the final closing of the acquisition of SafeNet, a worldwide provider of data and software protection. The deal, worth US$890 million, follows approval by the relevant regulatory and antitrust authorities.

Redwood City, CA, USA – Silver Spring Networks, Inc. has agreed to acquire privately held Detectent, Inc., a provider of utility data analytics solutions for approximately US$12 million in cash.

Atlanta, Boston & Cincinatti, USA. November 11, 2014 – KORE Wireless Group, Inc., a global provider of managed M2M communications services, today announced that ABRY Partners, a North America private equity investment firm, has acquired a majority interest in KORE. As the first step in its broader strategy, KORE also announced the acquisition of RacoWireless.

Qualcomm Inc today announced that it has reached agreement with the UK’s second largest chip designer, CSR plc on the terms of a recommended cash acquisition. As Jeremy Cowan reports, this follows last month’s sale of Neul to Huawei for US$25 million and other recent IoT investments where companies are looking for distressed assets or

West Malling, Kent, UK. September 1, 2014 — CSR has confirmed that it has been approached by Microchip Technology Inc. with terms for a possible offer for the company. The proposal by US-based MicrochipTech, a larger rival as well as a customer, has been rejected by the CSR Board and the company said that it

(Blog) San Antonio, Texas, USA. August 26, 2014 — The Overview: Within the next week or so, there will be at least one sizable transaction in the MVNO space, with the amounts dwarfing the recent Axeda acquisition by PTC, writes Lawrence Latham. The goal of these transactions is to turn one or more of the MVNOs

Washington DC, USA — SmartThings, the creator of the free-to-download home control app for smartphones, has been acquired by South Korea-based Samsung and will operate as an independent company within Samsung’s Open Innovation Center group. Now, as Jeremy Cowan reports, SmartThings’ CEO is responding to mixed views about the sale.

Needham, MASS., USA. July 23, 2014 – PTC (Nasdaq: PTC) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Axeda Corporation, a company developing solutions to securely connect machines and sensors to the cloud. The deal is worth approximately US$170 million in cash.

Reply S.p.A has agreed to acquire a 20% stake in the Redmond, Washington-based Sensoria Inc, a provider of wearable technology for the Internet of Things. One analyst calls it a small but positive step towards a multidisciplinary approach to wearable tech.

In this new column, editor-in-chief Jeremy Cowan looks at the communications news that’s fit to publish, and all the rest. There’s a strong rebuttal of rumours that Subex is to be sold, and a punchy response from T-Mobile USA’s CEO to allegations by the FTC that it has crammed bogus charges onto customers’ bills.

San Jose, California, USA — Cisco Systems Inc has acquired the San Francisco-based firm, Assemblage Inc. Assemblage is working on collaboration technology that supports the Internet of Things (IoT), or as Cisco describes it the Internet of Everything (IoE). Terms of the deal have not be disclosed.

Lincolnshire, and Schaumburg, Illinois, USA, April 15, 2014 — Zebra Technologies Corporation and Motorola Solutions, Inc. have definitively agreed that Zebra will acquire Motorola’s Enterprise business for US$3.45 billion in an all-cash transaction. The acquisition will be funded through a combination of cash on hand and new debt. 

Sun Capital Partners, Inc. has announced that one of its affiliates has agreed to acquire Aclara Technologies LLC from ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ESE). Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The north American Advanced Meter Infrastructure solutions provider will become an independent business.

Alpharetta, Georgia, USA. March 5, 2014 — KORE, said to be the world’s largest wireless network services provider specialising in machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Jazz Wireless Data, an established provider of M2M networking services in North America.