M&A Report: Verse, Simplecast and Microsoft In the News

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, Square buys Verse, Sirius XM expands podcast monetizing capabilities with Simplecast and Microsoft acquires ADRM software.

Square Inc. buys Spanish payment app Verse

Square Inc. has completed its acquisition of Spanish peer-to-peer payment app Verse. The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Verse reported 24 million active users at the end of 2019 and is available across Europe, while Square only serves users in the US and UK. Square has stated that Verse’s team will effectively work in collaboration within its Cash App division.

Square has no intentions of merging the two brands, but the two will pool together expertise, technology and resources. Both services allow users to send and receive money in seconds through a mobile app without any additional fees.

Verse also recently launched a Visa debit card which is directly linked to users’ Verse accounts. Square obtained an Industrial Loan Company license from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and plans to launch a money lending service for Square customers named Square Financial Services in 2021.

Square has reported its Cash App grew 60% last year, building upon a 240% growth spurt in 2018. The company has been valued at around $27 billion.

Sirius XM acquires Simplecast

Sirius XM, which owns Pandora and has invested $75 million in SoundCloud this year, has announced the acquisition of podcast hosting and analytics platform Simplecast.

Starting at $15/mo, Simplecast allows podcasters to publish and manage their content while providing a variety of analytics, and even guarantees thousands of downloads per month.

Simplecast will be paired with Sirius’ ad tech unit AdsWizz, acquired in 2018, to enable podcasters to publish and generate revenue from their content on the same platform.

Simplecast already hosts content for publishers such as Netflix, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Blue Wire, and Maximum Fun.

The addition of Simplecast will contribute to Sirius XM’s and Pandora’s capabilities for monetizing podcasts with ad insertion, ad serving, and programmatic solutions for the publishers.

Microsoft gains ADRM software

Microsof t has acquired ADRM Software, a service that provides industry data models for companies. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

ADRM produces models for a wide range of industries, including communications, financial services, and healthcare.

Microsoft said it has plans to integrate these models with storage and computing abilities from Azure to create “data lakes” of information sourced from multiple lines of business.

ADRM Software develops data models which include entities, attributes, business rules, relationships which companies use as information blueprints to capture and define business concepts and integrate processes.

In Other News

See what else has been happening this week:

Motorola Solutions has acquired the designer and manufacturer of intelligent video security systems IndigoVision for approximately $37 million.

IBM Corporation announced that it is acquiring Santa Clara-based cloud cybersecurity posture management solutions provider Spanugo; the first acquisition since CEO Arvind Krishna took the job in April.

As part of the concessions for regulatory approval of the $26 billion T-Mobile and Sprint merger, the two wireless carriers agreed to sell Boost Mobile to DISH Network for $1.4 billion, and 800MHz wireless spectrum for $3.6 billion over three years.

AT&T Inc. is mulling a sale of its Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment gaming division, which makes games such as Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Mortal Kombat 11.

Amid surging demand for online grocery shopping in recent months due to the coronavirus pandemic, Instacart saw its valuation increase to nearly $14 billion, up significantly from $8 billion when it last raised money in 2018.