Analysis of 8 Data & Analytics M&A and Fundraising Deals - September 11-16, 2024
TL;DR - Acquisitions for FE fundinfo, Mastercard; Investments in Datassential, PriceShape, Strider Technologies; Ren Systems, Landbase; potential M&A for 23andMe.
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September 13 - Datassential announces growth investment from New Mountain Capital and Endicott Capital.
Provider of Food & Beverage Data & Analytics Datassential has taken funding from two experienced Data & Analytics Private Equity investors.
New Mountain, backers of SNL Financial (sold to S&P Global in 2015 for $2.225bn), and Endicott, led by ex-SNL Financial CEO Mike Chinn, are also co-investors in Chemicals and Workplace Safety Compliance Data & Analytics provider 3E.
Spectrum backed Datassential five years ago.
Between 2019 and today, Datassential has undergone a period of evolution, including more than tripling its customer count, launching several new products – such as Report Pro and Price Monitor – and completing the acquisition of CHD Expert Group, solidifying their position as the world leader in foodservice data.
Friends of Asymmetrix Craig Muir and Joe Watson at Solomon Partners advised New Mountain Capital.
We will watch Datassential’s journey from here with interest.
September 12 - FE fundinfo strengthens financial advice offering with AdviserAsset acquisition.
A very small tuck-in acquisition for Hg-backed FE fundinfo.
AdviserAsset provides tools for UK Independent Financial Advisors to enable them to assess products and providers for their clients.
This is FE fundinfo’s eighth deal in the last three years, coming on the back of acquisitions such as Dericon, Adjuto, Fundsquare, Zenith Group and FundConnnect.
Hg have held 1000-person strong FE fundinfo for over 6 years now. Asymmetrix suspects that a process may be in the offing soon.
September 12 - Mastercard bolsters threat intelligence capabilities with $2.65bn deal for Recorded Future.
We have talked repeatedly about the value to be found in Cyber Security Data & Analytics. This deal is a prime example.
Recorded Future indexes the internet across the open web, dark web, and technical sources, providing intelligence across adversaries, infrastructure, and targets.
Mastercard and Recorded Future already had a partnership, building a service alerting financial institutions when a credit card may be compromised, so discussions had likely been ongoing for a while.
This was Insight Partners’ second deal of last week - they also sold Own to Salesforce for $1.9bn.
Insight acquired a controlling interest in Recorded Future in 2019, valuing the business at more than $780m. A 3.4x ROI in 5 years, generating $1.75m, is not bad going.
Both of last week’s deals will undoubtedly help Insight as they close in on their latest $10bn fund.
Qatalyst advised Recorded Future this time around.
September 12 - PriceShape partners with Copilot Capital.
Copilot Capital has been on a hot investment streak in the past few months - PriceShape is their second Danish deal and third investment from their inaugural fund.
E-commerce Price Intelligence Data & Analytics is a high growth and fragmented sector. There is plenty of opportunity for consolidation in the market, and also to sign customers who are currently using DIY solutions.
PwC advised PriceShape.
Congratulations to John Messer and the team at Copilot.
September 12 - Strider Technologies raises $55m in Series C funding led by Pelion Venture Partners.
Five-year-old Strider provides Data & Analytics to prevent risk and compliance issues such as state-sponsored intellectual property theft, targeted talent acquisition, and supply chain vulnerabilities.
The round was led by Pelion Venture Partners, and included participation from AXA Venture Partners (AVP), and existing investors Valor Equity Partners, DataTribe and Cyfr Capital.
One to watch.
September 11 - Ren Systems raises $3.5m, led by JLL Spark Global Ventures, the venture arm of commercial real estate firm JLL, with participation from Camber Creek, ZoomInfo, and Contour Ventures, to scale its AI-powered relationship intelligence technology.
A small deal but Ren is a business we have been following closely due to the presence of Randall Winn, co-founder of CapIQ and founder of Data & Analytics investor 22C, on the cap table.
Ren’s relationship intelligence is already used by 5,000+ sales and business development leaders in finance, commercial real estate, and professional services. Unlike most sales platforms designed for high-volume, transactional outreach, Ren is purpose-built for personalized relationship-building and dealmaking.
Ren automates research, meeting prep, and outreach by understanding the users' business objectives and syncing with their CRM, Outlook, calendar, and iOS contacts. Ren monitors hundreds of thousands of sources, surfaces timely and relevant alerts about key contacts and companies, and recommends actions to help uncover and win deals.
The press release also highlights an agreement between Ren and Zoominfo for Ren’s technology to be integrated with ZoomInfo Copilot, their AI.
Randall Winn serves as a Board Director of ZoomInfo so this has undoubtedly expedited matters. There is a clear path here towards a full acquisition of Ren by ZoomInfo in due course.
September 11 - 23andMe CEO Wojcicki open to third-party takeover proposals for firm, filing shows - Reuters
On September 9, 2024, in response to requests from the Special Committee, Ms. Wojcicki notified the members of the Special Committee that Ms. Wojcicki would be open to considering third party takeover proposals for the Issuer. Ms. Wojcicki continues to evaluate and negotiate a transaction to acquire all of the Issuer’s outstanding shares of common stock not owned by her or her affiliates or any other stockholders she invites to “roll-over” their current equity shares.
September 11 - Landbase raised $12.5m in seed funding to automate go-to-market co-led by A*, 8VC, and First Minute Capital, with participation from Inovia Capital, Picus, and General Catalyst.
We don’t report every single Data & Analytics fundraising - particularly the smaller ones - they are too numerous to perform analysis on (although we add them to our database.)
But this fundraising caught our eye for a number of reasons:
Last week we wrote about 11x.AI, who at that point were alleged to be a target for investment by Andreesen Horowitz (bonus reading: A16Z just released this article on AI Copilots and Agents). In the end 11x.AI has raised $24m in Series A led by Benchmark. 11x.AI has a similar focus on automating go-to-market using AI;
It’s a chunky seed round, including some big-hitting VCs;
A good friend of Asymmetrix is currently in stealth mode with an AI business and finding that Sales is a potentially lucrative target sector for their technology;
There is no shortage of Data & Analytics providers focused on Sales - the landscape is evolving rapidly. This piece by and does a great job of summarising the evolving trends.
It will be interesting to track Landbase as they navigate the market, and the impact that they, and other new AI players, have on imcumbents like ZoomInfo. Asymmetrix expects the larger Data & Analytics providers in the space to start acquiring startups like Landbase (or Ren Systems for that matter) for their technology in due course.