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, Facebook continues its VR push by acquiring Sanzaru Games. Salesforce expands its vertical capabilities with Vlocity and Intuit grows with the purchase of Credit Karma.

Facebook picks up Sanzaru Games

Facebook has acquired Bay Area VR company Sanzaru Games. 

Asgard’s Wrath, considered by many to be the best Oculus Rift game, is one of the four VR titles developed by Sanzaru, along with Marvel Powers United VR, Ripcoil, and VR Sports Challenge. 

Financial terms of the deal were not released, while Sanzaru will remain independently operated in the same offices in the U.S. and Canada. 

This acquisition is reminiscent of Facebook’s acquisition of VR studio Beat Games last November. Both moves showed that Facebook has a growing interest in accelerating VR development, and taking studios in house will only help in more quickly furthering their development goals. 

Salesforce expands their portfolio with Vlocity

Salesforce has signed an agreement to acquire Vlocity, Inc., leading provider of industry-specific cloud and mobile software, for $1.33 billion. 

Salesforce provides customer-relationship management services and applications to companies through cloud-based software solutions. 

This acquisition by Salesforce helps to expand their portfolio through industry-specific offerings such as media, energy and utility, and financial services; all through Salesforce’s primary enterprise platform. 

The deal does not come as a surprise as Salesforce has advanced their industry-specific capabilities in the past through expansions and partnerships with companies such as Veeva.

Intuit gains Credit Karma

Intuit, an American business and financial software company, has announced its plan to acquire Credit Karma, a credit-score-monitoring company, for $7.1 billion. 

Credit Karma provides personal finance solutions that allow users to file their taxes and check their own credit scores. Intuit owns several well-known financial brands such as TurboTax, Mint, and Quickbooks. 

Although the acquisition of Credit Karma removes Intuit’s competitor from the field, it may result in the cannibalization of sales as Credit Karma and TurboTax both offer similar tax-filing and credit-score-monitoring services. 

Despite the risks, this deal may give Intuit the resources it needs to develop its artificial-intelligence solutions. Data is necessary in developing AI and Credit Karma’s use of customer data in its product is a valuable resource. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2020.

In Other News

These weren’t the only major developments from the past week. Check out what else is happening:

• W3LL PEOPLE has been acquired by e.l.f. Beauty for a total cash value of $27 million. W3ll PEOPLE is a cruelty-free, clean beauty company focused on plant-based products with no added byproducts.

• Qorvo, a leading provider of innovative Radio Frequency (RF) solutions, has completed its acquisition of Decawave, a provider of ultra-wideband (UWB) technology solutions for mobile, automotive, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. 

• Comcast Corporation has acquired Xumo, a streaming service with paid and advertising-supported services for live and on-demand programming.

• BlackRock Long Term Private Capital has reached an agreement to acquire Creed, a multi-century old luxury fragrance. 

• Fox Corp. and Comcast Corp. are both in talks to acquire low cost, ad-supported video streaming services.

• This week, Bob Iger announced his resignation as the CEO of Disney. Iger will remain as an executive chairman through December 2021 and continue to manage Disney’s content creation division. Iger is replaced by Bob Chapek, the head of Disney’s parks business.

• Peacock, NBCUniversal’s upcoming over-the-top subscription video-on-demand streaming service, announced that it had inked licensing deal with A&E Networks for access to hundreds of hours of shows that include Pawn Stars, Ancient Aliens, and Cold Case Files. 

• Food-delivery provider DoorDash Inc. — which overtook GrubHub and UberEats to become the leader in the on-demand food delivery space last year — has confidentially filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering.