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, Twitter made another acquisition, Deloitte gained a lead in cybersecurity with Root9B, and Khoros expanded its conversational AI capabilities by purchasing Flow.ai.
Twitter Gains Newsletter Service Revue
Revue is the most recent acquisition by Twitter in a two-month spree of acquiring start-ups to expand its platform beyond just social media timeline.
Revue is an email newsletter service which could help businesses use Twitter as a platform to better connect with their followers. For now, Revue will continue to operate as an independent service, but Twitter plans to integrate it to “work seamlessly within Twitter.” The deal comes after Twitter failed to acquire Revue’s competitor Substack.
Newsletter subscriptions offer an alternative revenue stream to the typical ad-based model. Substack skims 10% of subscription dollars, while Revue takes only a 6% cut. Twitter claims it will lower that to 5% to attract new writers.
The company wrote in a blog post, “Revue will accelerate our work to help people stay informed about their interests while giving all types of writers a way to monetize their audience – whether it’s through the one they built at a publication, their website, on Twitter, or elsewhere.” Revue also brings a few notable customers including major publishers like Vox Media, and The Markup. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Deloitte LLP Purchases Cybersecurity Company Root9B
Deloitte & Touche LLP has announced it has acquired cybersecurity company Root9B LLC for an undisclosed amount. The deal gives Deloitte Root9B’s main offering, Orion, which provides what the company calls a cost-effective way to manage and reduce risk without adding complexity to a security stack.
Deloitte claims that with “the addition of R9B’s business, Deloitte’s Cyber Detect and Respond offering will continue to help clients gain a leading edge in cyber defense, integrate fragmented security toolsets, achieve efficiencies in security operations programs, accelerate response time to potential threats and provide data-driven threat insights.”
Established in 2011 as a cybersecurity training organization with a vision of delivering military-grade technology to the non-public sector, Root9B has produced cyber threat detection products and services. The company’s founder and CEO Eric Hipkins described the acquisition as “a rational next move” for Root9B.
Khoros Acquired Flow.ai
Software company Khoros has announced it acquired a conversational AI platform for designing and managing chatbots, Flow.ai. Flow.ai is a visual bot platform for AI chatbots operating on channels including Facebook and WhatsApp.
The acquisition advances Khoros’ conversational AI and machine learning capabilities, and furthers the company’s ongoing efforts to automate frameworks which power its customer engagement platform.
Khoros’ open API in its automation framework lets brands continue using any third-party bot provider. Khoros also offers additional advising on bot strategy to help brands identify steps in customer interfaces which they could automate.
In Other News
Curious about what else is happening? Here are other developments:
- SAP has struck a deal to acquire business process management company Signavio in a transaction that has been valued around $1.2 billion.
- As the legalization of digital sports betting spreads across the country, casino company Bally’s Corporation announced that it is acquiring fantasy sports operator Monkey Knife Fight (MKF) for $90 million.
- Workday, Inc., a leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, announced that it is acquiring employee feedback platform Peakon ApS for $700 million in cash.
- According to Reuters, British online fashion retailer ASOS is in talks to buy the Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, and HIIT brands from Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group, which was placed into bankruptcy protection late last year.
- Nerdy Inc., a direct-to-consumer gig economy platform for live online learning announced that it would become a public company through a business combination with TPG Pace Tech Opportunities, a special purpose acquisition company.
