Fusion Corporate Partners

Google Acquisition Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Google, is to make a recommended voluntary public cash offer to acquire all the issued and to be issued shares of Global IP Solutions (GIPS) for $2.12 in cash per share, or an aggregate price of approximately $68.2 million based on the currently issued and outstanding share capital of GIPS. The acquisition be funded from Google’s existing cash resources.

“The Web is evolving quickly as a development platform, and real-time video and audio communication over the Internet are becoming important new tools for users,” said Rian Liebenberg, Engineering Director at Google. “GIPS’s technology provides high quality, real-time audio and video over an IP network, and we’re looking forward to working with the GIPS team at Google to continue innovating for the Web platform.”

The offer price represents a premium of 142.1% over the closing share price of GIPS stock (adjusted for the rights issue in GIPS completed in March 2010) on January 11, 2010, the last trading day prior to GIPS making a public announcement of strategic interest from a potential buyer, a premium of 170.8% over the subscription price per share of GIPS stock in the last rights offering completed in March 2010 and a premium of 27.5% compared to the closing share price on 14 May, 2010, the last trading day prior to the offeror’s public announcement of its intention to make the offer. Furthermore, the offer price represents a premium of 54.6% compared to the adjusted volume weighted average market price for the last three month period prior to the announcement of the transaction. 

Following the successful completion of the offer, the offeror intends to cause GIPS to submit an application to delist the GIPS stock from the Oslo Stock Exchange and to initiate compulsory acquisition proceedings with respect to the remaining minority shareholdings in GIPS in accordance with Swedish law.

An offer document setting forth in detail the terms of the offer is expected to be published and distributed to all GIPS shareholders on or about 20 May, 2010. The expiration date of the offer is expected to be on or about 4 June, 2010, as it may be extended by the offeror in accordance with the offer document and applicable law.  In the event the conditions to the offer are not satisfied or waived by the offeror prior to 31 August, 2010, the offer will lapse. The board of directors of GIPS has made a resolution to recommend the offer.

SEB Enskilda is acting as Google’s sole strategic and financial advisor in the transaction and as the receiving agent for the offer.  ABG Sundal Collier Norge ASA is acting as financial advisor to the GIPS board of directors.

Location: USA, San Francisco, CA

Ref: F231109-436

Other recent Google acquisitions

• Google acquires Labpixies Posted on April 30, 2010
• Online photo editor Picnik Acquired by Google Posted on March 9, 2010
• Google has acquired DocVerse Posted on March 6, 2010
• Social search engine Aardvark has been acquired by Google  Posted on February 14, 2010
• Google is acquiring AppJet, the small startup that builds the popular collaboration tool EtherPad  Posted on December 4, 2009

Yippy, formerly Cinnabar Ventures, has acquired metasearch engine Clusty.com from Vivisimo.

Clusty.com attracts approximately 100,000 unique visitors and supports millions of search queries per month. “Clusty has found the perfect digital home with Yippy as they are a company that values an edited yet impactful Internet search,” said John Kealey, CEO of Vivisimo. “Rather than focusing just on search engine ranking, we realized that grouping results into topics, or ‘clustering,’ made for better search and discovery. Our service is robust enough to handle the variety of information that the Yippy user is looking for and provide the results in a family friendly format with the combination of Yippy and Clusty code sets.”

The total price of the asset acquisition and licensing is $5.55 million.

Location: USA, Fort Myers, FL

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NileGuide, a website that allows travellers to make recommendations and ptovides planning tools enabling travelers to build their own custom guides, has acquired Localyte’s platform and community for an undisclosed amount. Featuring original travel recommendations from a community of tens of thousands of content contributors around the world, Localyte offers users access to local insights into the best travel experiences available in any destination,. On the Localyte website, users can ask informed locals anything from “what’s the best craft market in Guatemala?” to “what’s the most romantic restaurant in Helsinki?” to “where can I find a good hiking trail outside Cape Town?”

The key assets acquired in the deal include the Localyte website and underlying technology platform, the large and growing community of member contributors, and the Localyte iPhone app, Pocket Sherpa. NileGuide will be integrating elements of the Localyte functionality into the NileGuide website, while also maintaining the Localyte website.

Location: USA, SAN FRANCISCO, CA

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Ad.ly an advertising platform on Twitter where people get paid for tweeting about products and services from brands has raised $5 million.

According to TechCrunch, the round was led by GRP Partners with Greycroft Partners and Matt Coffin (the founder of LowerMyBills) participating.

Arnie Gullov-Singh, previously EVP of product, technology and operations at News Corp’s Fox Audience Network, is appointed as CEO and founder Sean Rad will become President.

Location: USA, Los Angeles, California

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Swipely, an online service that gives users an easy way to turn their purchases into conversations, has completed a $7.5 million Series A round of financing.

On Swipely, every purchase is a “swipe.” Users can rate their swipes and add comments or photos. Many swipes are geo-located automatically to specific store locations. Swipely also supports product details by integrating catalogs and menus from more than 250,000 retail and restaurant locations, allowing users to start conversations around specific outfits, meals, songs, movies, gadgets and millions of other products.

The round was led by Index Ventures, with Greylock Partners and previous investor First Round Capital also participating. Danny Rimer of Index Ventures will join Swipely’s board of directors, and Reid Hoffman of Greylock Partners will serve as an observer on Swipely’s board.

Swipely will use the funding to continue to grow the team and explore other benefits for consumers and businesses, including new ways for users to shop, share and save, and new tools to help businesses attract, understand and reward customers.

Other Swipely investors include Lowercase Capital led by Chris Sacca, former head of special initiatives for Google; Keith Rabois, EVP of Slide, and former PayPal and LinkedIn executive; SV Angel led by Ron Conway, legendary investor; Anton Commissaris, previously SVP of revenue and business development at Mint.com and now director at Intuit; Lee Hower, venture capitalist and angel investor; Charles Moldow, former Tellme executive; and Emil Michael, White House Fellow and former Tellme executive. Davis is also a significant investor in the company.

To date, Swipely has raised $8.5 million in funding.
Location: USA, Providence, Rhode Island

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