News
News Corp clinched a deal to acquire Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s books and media segment for $349 million in cash, planning to combine the publisher with its HarperCollins Publishers subsidiary.
The Rupert Murdoch-controlled company said it expects the deal to close in the second quarter of calendar 2021, subject to to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.
The deal will add more horsepower to the business of HarperCollins, the second-largest consumer book publisher in the world after Bertelsmann’s Penguin Random House — and comes after Bertelsmann inked a pact with ViacomCBS to acquire Simon & Schuster for $2.17 billion.
The HMH Books & Media backlist of more than 7,000 titles include “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and other titles by J.R.R. Tolkien; “1984” and “Animal Farm” by George Orwell; and “All the King’s Men” by Robert Penn Warren. HarperCollins currently has rights to Tolkien’s works in the British Commonwealth.
The announcement comes just four days after News Corp said it will buy Investor’s Business Daily, the stock-analysis and investment research publication, for $275 million.
“There is a resurgence in reading and listening to books, and we believe the brilliant HMH Books & Media backlist and first-rate frontlist have an enduring and increasing value,” News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said in a statement. “The HarperCollins collection will be bolstered for children and young adults, and authors around the world will have a larger platform for their creativity and ingenuity. It is crucial to expand in an era in which emerging monopolies threaten the creative marketplace, so we welcome J.R.R. Tolkien, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and many, many other distinguished writers to HarperCollins.”
In calendar year 2020, HMH Books & Media reported net sales of $191.7 million — over 60% of which were were generated by its backlist — and adjusted earnings of $26.6 million. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2020, HarperCollins revenue grew 23% from the year-earlier period, to $102 million, with adjusted earnings up 65% to $41 million.
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British unicorn Cazoo that makes buying and selling cars online as easy as other products is all set to make its stock market debut in New York. The company will float at $7 billion (nearly £5 billion) and has agreed to go public in New York through a merger with AJAX I Acquisition Corp, a blank-check acquisition company led by billionaire US investor Dan Och.
To be listed in NYSE in Q3
The combined company will be called Cazoo, provided the deal will meet the approval of AJAX and Cazoo shareholders. It will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange sometime in the third quarter of 2021.
As the special-purpose acquisition company Ajax I will raise around $1.6 billion in proceeds for the company, including $805 million in a cash trust from the SPAC and another $800 million from Ajax’s sponsors, Cazoo said in a statement on Monday. London-based Cazoo will be listed in New York after the deal closes, and Och plans to join the company’s board.
Further, the transaction was led by the AJAX sponsors and D1 Capital Partners and joined by new and existing investors including Altimeter, funds & accounts managed by BlackRock, Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley) and Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC, Marcho Partners, Mubadala Capital, Pelham Capital, Senator Investment Group and Spruce House Partnership.
Alex Chesterman OBE, Founder & CEO of Cazoo, commented: “This announcement is another major milestone in our continued drive to transform the way people buy cars across Europe. We have created the most comprehensive and fully integrated offering in the largest retail sector which currently has very low digital penetration. This deal will provide us with almost $1 billion of further funds to fuel our growth and I am delighted to be partnering with Dan and his team at AJAX to rapidly expand and deliver the best car buying experience to consumers across Europe.”
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Manchester-based global delivery experience pioneer Sorted powers dynamic checkouts, delivery management and delivery tracking around the world. The company has now announced $15 million (nearly £11 million) in growth capital. Of this, $7 million (nearly £5 million) was led by Chrysalis Investments, an existing investor.
The growth capital will be used to support product development, growth in the team, global expansion and acquisition of several leading brands including Asda, musicMagpie, and XPO Logistics. The capital comes at a time when the SaaS tech delivery disruptor plans to further support the retail industry’s digital transformation, which accelerated due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Richard Watts, Fund Manager at Chrysalis Investments, said: “We are delighted to provide Sorted with additional capital which will enable them to execute their ambition growth strategy. The recent pandemic has accelerated channel shift and Sorted are well placed to benefit from this trend, evidenced recently by some very exciting enterprise customer wins.”
Mike Fletcher, Chairman of Sorted and Managing Partner at Arete Capital Partners LLP, added: “As consumer demand for rich customer delivery experiences soars, Sorted is having a huge impact on the retail industry. As it continues to support retailers to better serve their customers, the company’s incredible growth so far is a journey that I’m proud to be a part of,” says Fletcher.
David Grimes, founder & CEO of Sorted commented: “This investment comes at exactly the right stage of our journey, following a year which has seen more retail opportunities and challenges than any other in the history of e-commerce. Digital transformation has been driven at incredible speed, and I’m proud of how our team at Sorted has stepped forward to support an industry undergoing such tremendous change. This significant investment will continue our work in enabling brands to pivot and offer customers a five-star customer experience regardless of challenges in the retail landscape. We’re thrilled to see our investors back our goal to shake up the delivery and logistics sector, with our sights now set on expanding the same service and quality across the global stage.”
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Insuretech startup Counterpart, has raised $10 million in funding led by Valor Equity Partners. Also participating was Susa Ventures and Felicis Ventures. Counterpart works in the ‘management liability’ insurance market. Counterpart will also partner with Markel Specialty, a specialty insurance division of Markel Corporation, to offer its management liability insurance products.
Insuretech startups like Oscar, Lemonade, and Root have made incursions into personal insurance. What has been less prevalent, says Counterpart, is startups tackling the $300bn corporate insurance market.
Counterpart is competing with Next Insurance which has raised $631M, and which also provides small business liability insurance, as well as the big insurance carriers, from AIG to Berkshire Hathaway.
Counterpart is used by some wholesale brokers in the United States to allow small to medium businesses get insurance coverage, because it digitizes much of the process, from application submission, coverage selection, binding, claims management, and loss prevention. Counterpart says this market has become less attractive to insurance carriers because of the increasing claims costs and severity, and their lack of digitization of the process.
Tanner Hackett, founder, and CEO, said in a statement: “The $1.2tn insurance industry is going through a digital revolution.. We saw an outsized opportunity with management liability, a critical insurance line in which we have unique expertise.”
Valor Equity Partners partner and Counterpart board member Jon Shulkin said: “Counterpart’s platform goes beyond the scope of a traditional insurer, layering in insights, tools, and services to help business stakeholders navigate this extremely challenging operating environment.”
Valor was an early backer of Tesla, SpaceX, Addepar, and GoPuff. Susa has previously backed Robinhood, PolicyGenius, and Newfront Insurance. Felicis has funded Hippo, Plaid, and Credit Karma.
LONDON (Reuters) - Online pensions provider Pensionbee plans to list on the London Stock Exchange, it said on Tuesday.
The firm has around 130,000 customers and 1.5 billion pounds ($2.08 billion) of assets under administration, it said in a statement.
Pensionbee said it planned an institutional offering and an offer for existing customers, with shares to be admitted to the high growth segment of the London Stock Exchange’s main market.
Keefe, Bruyette & Woods is acting as key adviser and sole global co-ordinator.
($1 = 0.7226 pounds)
Digital identity services — used as a key link between organizations to verify that you are who you say you are online and individuals logging into those services — have come into their own in this past year. Now, one of the companies providing digital identity products is announcing a large round of funding, underscoring both the market size and its ambitions to be a central player in that space.
Jumio, which has built a platform that provides a variety of digital identity tools and technology — using biometrics, machine learning, computer vision, big data, and more to run checks on ID documents, log-ins, to help prevent suspicious financial activity, identity theft and more — has closed a $150 million round of funding. The Palo Alto-based company says it will use the funds to build more tools on its platform, and to double down on customer growth after a big year.
Currently, Jumio’s primary business is B2B: it provides tools to enterprise customers like HSBC to manage digital identity verification. Some of the areas where it will be investing include expanding its AI capabilities to do more anti-money laundering work, and to look at building a B2C product, using the data, tools and network of customers that it has to help individuals better manage their identities online.
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Proximie, a London, UK-based health technology platform company focused on digitising operating and diagnostic rooms, closed a $38m Series B equity financing.
The round was led by F-Prime Capital, with participation from new investors Questa Capital, Eight Roads, Maverick Ventures, and existing investors Global Ventures, BECO Capital and Cedar Mundi Ventures.
The company intends to use the funds to expand in the U.S. and European markets growing its commercial efforts, making new technology implementations, and conduct research and development activities.
Founded by Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram FRCS (Plastics) – (B.E.M., British Empire Medal), in 2016, Proximie provides a platform that combines human expertise with augmented reality (AR), machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced telecommunications to build a network of operating rooms, where every interaction is captured, digitised, catalogued, and analysed.
The company has experienced rapid growth over the last 12 months, having conducted over 10,000 surgical interactions in 300 hospitals in over 40 countries.
Due to the ongoing pandemic, hyperlocal online grocery sales have exploded globally, and the UK is no behind this surging trend. After, Weezy, Dija, Bother and many others, another one has joined the bandwagon, ready to deliver groceries to shopper’s doorsteps in 15 minutes, without minimum orders or substitutions.
Dubbed as Jiffy, the UK-based startup has also raised £2.6 million ($3.6m) in an initial seed-funding round this week. Led by venture capital fund LVL1 Group, the first investment round for the startup was also attended by AddVenture, TA Ventures, Vladimir Kholiaznikov, also angel investors including Oskar Hartmann, Alexander Nevinskiy and Dominique Locher.
What’s unique about Jiffy?
Headed by a team with extensive experience in online and offline retail, including former managers from Sainsbury’s, Deliveroo and Revolut, Jiffy’s first dark store will open in London this month offering a total range of 2,000 SKUs.
Lev Leviev, the founder of LVL1 Group, commented: “Online express grocery delivery is a relatively new concept. It is gaining traction around the world and disrupting traditional neighbourhood convenience store shopping. Executing hyperlocal delivery requires a combination of online e-commerce and sophisticated offline retail and logistics expertise.”
The first areas Jiffy will be available in will include Westminster, Waterloo, Lambeth, Battersea, Clapham Town, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Hackney, Whitechapel, Stepney Green.
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We live in a world where merchants still pay to be paid – fees between 2-5%, which are hidden from consumers, but the consumer ultimately picks up the bill.
To alleviate this issue, London fintech Agitate has got an investment of $3.5 million (£2.51 million approx) from pool of high calibre tech-savvy investors. These include Frank Schilling, a highly successful internet entrepreneur who recently sold some of his registry business to GoDaddy and Stuart Lawley. With the latest backing, Agitate is launching its innovative payment solution BOPP, with an aim to bring an end to card fraud, remove friction in digital payments, and slash transaction fees – saving UK businesses over £9bn a year.
The new payment platform from Agitate, the payment and Identity company, combines decentralised Identity, blockchain and open banking. As it uses open banking, there is no need to use payment cards, thereby making the transaction super secure.
In 2019, over £1 billion was lost in card fraud and the card, not present fraud was estimated to have resulted in a staggering £470 million. By generating a payment link from BOPP, this issue will be eliminated. This tech is secure as every bank account that requests payments is verified by BOPP directly from their business bank. The transactions made via this platform are consented to by the payee via biometrics and online bank app security.
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Lilli is a UK-based SaaS company that uses machine learning to revolutionise home care. The company bagged £4.5 million pre-Series A funding. The 50% oversubscribed round was organised by West Hill Capital.
The company that supports independent living will use the investment to fuel the roll out of machine learning-enabled care solutions. The funding comes eight months into Lilli CEO Gren Paull’s tenure and a slew of senior appointments including former management consultant Kelly Hudson as CSO, and CCO Nick Weston from O2.
Gren Paull, CEO, Lilli, said: “The timing for this new preventative approach to care and integration of our smart technology is crucial in meeting the needs of ageing population, this has only been exacerbated by COVID 19. The role of technology has a vital role to play in the future success of care delivery across the UK and globally.”
Robert Forbes Caie, managing partner West Hill Capital, added: “West Hill is delighted to be supporting Lilli enabling them to bring its pioneering preventative technology to the NHS and social care sector. Lilli’s proprietary technology is empowering people to live independently within their own homes for longer, when in the past, an individual’s age, ability or condition would have required constant supervision or care. West Hill seeks to identify companies harbouring strong IP that are potentially globally scalable and we feel that Lilli certainly exhibits these qualities.”
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