Acquisition roundup: Ramp, Top Hat, Wishpond, Trade X, Enthusiast Gaming

gaming

Five Canadian tech companies have made acquisitions or have been acquired over the last little while. Here are some highlights of Canada’s movers and shakers.

Ramp acquires Buyer to offer negotiation-as-a-service

Ramp, a New-York based FinTech company, raised $300 million USD to develop its finance automation platform and acquired British Columbia-based Buyer to offer negotiation-as-a-service to its clients.

The former offers a corporate card and spend management platform designed to help businesses cut down on costs and time. Headquartered in Victoria, BC, Buyer provides negotiation services for businesses to help them find the best rates for software services and organize their SaaS spending.

“Over the course of the pandemic software spending ballooned,” said Kimia Hamidi, founder and CEO of Buyer. “It is now the second largest line item for companies.”

Digital transformation was accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic to satisfy remote work, education and socialization. Worldwide software spending is projected to total $3.9 trillion USD this year, an increase of 6.2 percent from 2020, Gartner reported.

Top Hat acquires Morton Publishing Company

Top Hat, an online learning platform based in Toronto, acquired Morton Publishing Company earlier this year to broaden students’ access to course materials and learning resources in the sciences.

Morton Publishing Company was founded in 1977 by Doug Morton in Denver, Colorado. The company offers course materials for science disciplines, and its content is used at more than 1,500 institutions in the United States.

More than 600 labs and course materials from Morton Publishing Company are being converted into customizable digital courseware on Top Hat’s platform. According to Top Hat, this acquisition provides students with interactive experiences from the most popular lab materials over the course of the upcoming academic year.

The two companies have previously teamed up to provide digital, interactive editions of certain printed textbooks.

The acquisition comes after Top Hat closed $130 million USD in a Series E round from longtime investor Georgian Partners in February to drive the shift from printed textbooks to digital interactive course materials.

Betakit previously reported that the global e-learning market is forecasted to skyrocket from $144 billion USD in 2019 to $374.3 billion by 2026 as pandemic shutdowns force students to safely continue their education remotely.

Wishpond acquires Brax.io – a provider of ad management software

Vancouver-based Wishpond acquired Brax.io in August for $2 million USD.

Wishpond is a digital marketing solutions startup that offers a suite of cloud-based applications and services for business growth. Founded by Ali Tajskandar in 2009, the company has expanded its technology suite to include a lead generation platform, an email marketing platform and a marketing automation system.

Based out of New York, Brax.io provides an advertising platform where users are able to manage all of their active advertisements from a single dashboard. The Brax ad management system allows users to create and automate advertising campaigns using custom rules across networks, accounts and ad platforms.

This is Wishpond’s third acquisition, with the most recent being in January this year where it acquired San Mateo, California-based SaaS startup PersistIQ for $3 million USD. In the same month, the company also acquired Invigo, a Surrey-based marketing technology company focused on serving medical clinics.

Trade X acquires Techlantic to enhance automotive trading platform

Mississauga startup Trade X recently acquired Techlantic—an Oakville-based automotive trading, redistribution, and financing company—for undisclosed terms.

Trade X was founded in 2018 and offers a global automotive trading platform where it combines an inventory and distribution system, trade data compliance, digital trade documentation, payments, forwarding, trade financing solutions, and accountability systems in a single dashboard.

Powered by artificial intelligence, the company claims that the Trade X “Brain” platform connects buyers and sellers through an online marketplace that aids sellers in finding the world’s highest bidders and gives buyers access to the best source markets and price arbitrage opportunities.

In February, Trade X secured a revolving line of credit valued at $50 million USD that also included an accordion to expand it up to $100 million from Finitive, an institutional private credit platform.

Techlantic, with a long history in international vehicle trade dating back to 1983, facilitates all aspects of trade financing including cash flow management, tax claims, shipping, letter of credit processing, and accounting.

With its acquisition, Trade X wants to enhance its existing platform capabilities such as trade financing, logistics, and letter of credit processing, and provide additional wholesale automotive trading expertise for car dealers, importers, exporters, fleet owners, rental companies, and mobility solution providers.

Enthusiast Gaming acquires Addicting Games to enter casual games market

Enthusiast Gaming, a video games company based in Toronto, acquired Los Angeles, California-based Addicting Games, for $34.4 million USD as part of its buy and build growth strategy.

From its launch in 2013, Enthusiast Gaming wants to build the world’s largest network of communities for gamers through multi-channel media, original content, and events.

Addicting Games has been operating for around two decades in the casual gaming industry with in-app purchases available on its thousands of online games.

“Addicting Games integrates with existing advertising and subscription revenue streams and unlocks new streams such as in-game purchases, and other affiliate type deals,” said Adrian Montgomery, CEO of Enthusiast Gaming. “At the same time, our media platforms and influencers will expand the reach of Addicting Games’ current titles.”

Montgomery also said that Enthusiast Gaming will be taking on all of Addicting Games’ 28 employees.

Charlize Alcaraz

Charlize Alcaraz

Charlize Alcaraz is a staff writer for BetaKit.

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