The last weeks three large deals have been announced, with regard to tech companies in the region. Altho we do not regard two of them as startups anymore, as we draw the line at being publicly listed (read how we look at startups), all of the deals are very important for the tech scene in the region.
Jay-Z buys Aspiro
The first one was that Jay-z buying Aspiro, the company behind the music service WiMP and Tidal. This deal, valued at almost € 50 million ($ 56 million), is huge for the Malmö-based company. Even if no longer a startup, as it listed on the Stockholm OMX stock exchange.
Aspiros music services has over 500 000 paying users on its WiMP and Tidal services, which is an impressive number, even if far behind Spotify’s 15 million subscribers, it still makes it an strong player in the music services field.
Endomondo acquired by Under Armour
The deal that was both big and directly startup related, was Endomondos exit last week, at € 57 million ($ 85 million), to Under Armour. You can read more about the deal in our post. This was a big exit for a startup from the region, and Endomondos journey has been impressive!
Update: even more impressive – it has been revealed that just days before the deal was signed, 38 current and former employees got a chance to get shares of the startup. A total of 12.67 percent was in this way handed over to employees – and made almost everyone working at the startup a good amount of money! Things like these are really valuable for the startup community, as it enables more experienced people to invest in other startups or have a runway when they try their own venture.
Canon buys Axis
The even bigger news was Canon buys Lund-based Axis. The sum? A cool € 2.4 billion ($ 2.8 billion)… Axis has been one of the strongest success stories in the region, starting out with selling print servers, and having expanded into new fields over the years, with network and security cameras (go to website link to learn more) becoming a big area. Axis has now grown to be one of the biggest companies in the video surveillance market, were it is estimated to have a 17.5 percent global market share. The deal will make Canon a top player this market.
Important for the region
With these three deals, the region has seen huge things already for 2015. I hope that with the founders all in the region, this will be a boost for other startups as well, and something that will strengthen the startup scene in general. With the deals both more money, but also even more crucial, more experience, is held by people here.
