IT mergers

2020 has been an unpredictable year in many ways than anyone would have expected. With Covid-19 prevailing, everything changed, from physical to virtual, from offline to online, and so on. But there's one thing that remains constant is the regular flow of IT mergers and acquisitions over the tech sector. The big tech companies took the opportunity to expand their business with major IT mergers and acquisitions.

Here are the biggest enterprise technology acquisitions of 2020-21 so far, in reverse sequential order:

July 13: Microsoft acquires cybersecurity firm RiskIQ

RiskIQ is a San Francisco-based company that specializes in threat intelligence, detection, and security for clients like BMW, American Express, and the US Postal Service. Microsoft declared the acquisition of RiskIQ for 500 million dollars. Microsoft is the leader in delivering cloud-native security with Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Azure Sentinel, etc. With this acquisition, it aims to continue its mission to assist customers to protect their digital assets against an increasing number of cyber threats.

July 6: Uber acquires Postmates

Uber declared the acquisition of Pstmates for 2.65 billion dollars. Postmates is a complimentary service to Uber Eats, with a focus on customers from different demographics. This is a Delivery as a Service pioneer, which is certainly going to help Uber in its growing delivery efforts.

June 30: Google acquires glasses maker North

Google has announced the acquisition of North on June 30, 2020, without disclosing the amount. North is a popular Canadian company that creates stylish Focals smart glass.

June 29: JFRog acquires Vdoo for $300M

JFrog, a DevOps specialist,  declared the acquisition of Vdoo for #00 million dollars to assist customers in creating more secure software. Vdoo has built an AI-based platform that identifies software vulnerabilities specifically for connected devices, which is also known as the Internet of Things.

June 26: Amazon to acquire autonomous driving startup Zoox for £1.2B

Amazon announced the acquisition of Zoox, a startup based in California for 1.2 billion euros. The startup worked on autonomous technology for mobility as a service.

June 25: AWS acquires Wickr

As AWS continues to expand its service into public and military sectors, it announced the purchase of Wickr, a secure messaging service. This gives security-focused enterprises and government agencies the ability to execute important governance and security controls to help them meet their compliance requirements.

June 24: Visa acquires Tink for $2.15B

Visa declared to purchase Tink, a European fintech firm, for 2.15 million dollars. Tint is a Sweden-based company and has created an API that enables customers to get greater access to their bank account and payment data. It is reported that the merger of Tink and Visa will be able to move faster and reach a larger target audience.

June 21: Hyundai takes controlling stake in Boston Dynamics

Hyundai, a South Korean automaker announced its purchase of Boston Dynamics, a controlling stake in a US robotics company for $1.1 billion. This acquisition aims at allowing the world cutting-edge automation and solving the world’s toughest robotics challenge for their customers.

June 2: Prosus acquires Stack Overflow for $1.8B

Prosus, a South African investment firm announced its purchase of Stack Overflow, a popular programming Q&A website, for 1.8 billion dollars. But the important part here is that Stack Overflow will continue to operate independently, with the same team in place that has been operating it, according to the same plan and the same business practices, there will be no major changes seen. 

May 11: Jamf acquires Wandera for $400M

Jamf, an enterprise Apple device management specialist, announced the acquisition of Wandera, a zero-trust cloud security company, for 400 million dollars. Jamf is looking forward to bring Wandera’s mobile security capabilities into its own Apple device management suite.

May 10: ServiceNow acquires Lightstep

ServiceNow announced its purchase of Lightstep, a software observability specialist, for an amount that is not yet disclosed. Post-acquisition, ServiceNow is looking forward to integrating the capabilities of observability technology into its existing tools, which are used by IT teams to respond to issues.

May 3: Private equity firms Francisco Partners and TPG acquires Boomi

Dell made a high-profile move to reorganize its business in the space of a month by selling Boomi, the integration specialist, which it acquired in 2010, to private equity firms Francisco Partners and TPG for $4 billion.

April 30: IBM acquires Turbonomic

IBM declared the purchase of Turbonomic for an amount that is not yet disclosed. Turbonomic is a Boston, MA-based company specializing in Application Resource Management (ARM) and Network Performance Management (NPM) software. This acquisition will all help IBM provide a greater range of AIOps and observability technologies for customers, particularly through its IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps.

April 29: Microsoft acquires Kinvolk

With the acquisition of Kinvolk, Microsoft took a step to boost its capabilities in the Kubernetes space. Microsoft aims to integrate the Kinvolk team and technology into the team responsible for its managed Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), its hybrid solution Azure Arc, and to boost its upstream open-source contributions.

April 23: Panasonic acquires Blue Yonder for $7.1B

Panasonic purchased the remaining 80% of shares in Blue Yonder for $7.1 billion, including the repayment of debt. Arizona-based Blue Yonder specializes in automated supply chain software that uses AI, IoT, and edge computing technology to track goods. Panasonic aims to add these capabilities to its Autonomous Supply Chain offering, which will assist the customers to better track their supply chain.

April 15: IBM acquires myInvenio

IBM announces the acquisition of mylnvenio, a process automation specialist for an undisclosed amount. Mylnvenio is an Italian firm that specializes in process mining which enables enterprises to detect inefficient business processes and search for opportunities for greater automation. IBM aims to integrate myInvenio into its existing Automation business unit.

April 12: Microsoft acquires Nuance for $19.7B

Microsoft unveiled the biggest acquisition of the year so far when it declared the purchase of Nuance for 19.7 billion dollars in an all-cash deal.

December 1: Salesforce acquires Slack for $27.7B

Slack integration is becoming an increasingly popular feature for various SaaS applications in ticketing, conferencing, project management, calendaring, etc. Salesforce, taking a step forward, announced its acquisition for 27.7 billion dollars and is aiming at changing Slack’s interface for its customers.

November 30: Facebook acquires Kustomer for $1B

To get in touch with customers across multiple platforms, Facebook acquired Kustomer for 1 billion dollars, as Kustomer is an amazing customer relationship management platform specializing in high support volume.

November 10: Adobe acquires Workfront for $1.5B

Adobe announced its intention to purchase Workfront, a popular project management solution for $1.5B.