In keeping with our mission to provide comprehensive advertising analysis, MediaRadar puts together a report of the most important mergers and acquisitions news each week. Stay in the loop, whether you sell advertising space or focus on business development.
This week, Reddit improved their video hosting capabilities by acquiring Dubsmash, IBM bought fintech company Expertus Technologies, and Twitter gained Squad.
Reddit buys Dubsmash, TikTok’s biggest competitor
Dubsmash, a video sharing social media service app has been acquired by Reddit. Dubsmash has raised $420.2 million from investors since it launched 5 years ago, and has positioned itself as one of Tik Tok’s biggest rivals.
Under the terms of the deal, Dubsmash will continue to run as a separate platform and brand, while Reddit plans to integrate its video creation tools.
Reddit has hosted native video uploads since 2017, but its video-editing tools are limited and underutilized. Reddit announced earlier this month that its platform reaches 52 million daily users, but much of its video content is hosted elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Dubsmash reports its videos are viewed over a billion times a month. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
IBM acquires Expertus Technologies, further expanding payment modernization efforts
IBM has completed an acquisition of the fintech company Expertus Technologies. The deal expands IBM’s payment modernization for financial institutions.
Expertus Technologies offers payment-as-a-service cloud solutions to banks, credit unions, and enterprise players. The company claims over $50 billion is processed through their platform every day.
The deal comes six months after IBM’s acquisition of Spanugo, and one month after acquiring TruQua. Both were deals made to enhance IBM’s public cloud capabilities. Under the terms of the deal, Expertus is joining the IBM Global Business Services division.
Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Twitter gains Squad, diversifies product offerings
Twitter acquired Squad, a video chat app that allows users to hang out with friends via video chat and screen-sharing. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Instead of video chatting and presenting for business meetings, Squad aims to build the case for friend use. They allow users to share their screens and video chat on mobile or desktop simultaneously.
As a result of the COVID-19 lockdown earlier this year, Squad has seen a 1,100% increase in usage of its platform. According to Twitter’s VP of product, Squad brings in “a deep understanding of how people participate in interactive audio and video conversations,” and the app will help Twitter “bring new ways for people to interact, express themselves, and join in the public conversation.”
This acquisition would be the latest effort by Twitter to diversify its product offerings beyond standard tweeting; the social media company launched a story-like feature called Fleet last month and introduced a clubhouse-like chat room feature to be coming later this year.
In Other News
There was plenty of activity this week. Learn what else is going on:
- Google has announced it acquired software developer Neverware, the producer of CloudReady.
- Palo Alto Networks, a global cybersecurity leader, has completed its acquisition of Expanse Inc., a leader in attack surface management.
- Wolters Kluwer Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) has completed its acquisition of eOriginal, a leading provider of cloud-based digital lending software, for approximately €231 million ($280 million) in cash.
- Web hosting company GoDaddy Inc. has agreed to acquire payments processor Poynt for $365 million.
- British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca plc announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Boston-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for $39 billion, in what would be the largest bio-pharmaceutical acquisition of 2020.
- Electronic Arts Inc. announced an agreement to acquire UK-based video game developer and publisher Codemasters for $1.2 billion.
- Nexstar Inc., a subsidiary of Nexstar Media Group, Inc., announced that it is acquiring BestReviews from Tribune Publishing Company for $160 million.
- ContextLogic, the parent of online e-commerce platform Wish, debuts its trading on NASDAQ on Wednesday.
