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- Climb's M&A Weekly: Deals by Marlin Equity Partners, Autodesk and Centivo
Climb's M&A Weekly: Deals by Marlin Equity Partners, Autodesk and Centivo
Marlin stays active by acquiring supply chain platform and Autodesk acquires AI powered visual effects solution
Nick @ Climb
May 26, 2024
Welcome to Climb Advisor’s weekly deal newsletter highlighting transactions announced last week across the B2B tech landscape.
Climb Advisors is an M&A and credit advisory firm focused on B2B software and services companies in the range of $5m to $100m+ enterprise value. We guide CEOs and business owners through the process of selling their business & assist investors in sourcing & closing great deals. We love to talk markets and share beneficial information - please reach out any time.
Marlin Equity Partners makers majority investment in Baxter Planning
Overview: We highlighted Marlin in April re: their acquisition of TIS, and this week they announced another substantial deal, this time an investment in Baxter Planning. The Austin based company provides predictive service supply chain solutions, with their SaaS platform helping clients gain control and visibility across their entire service parts lifecycle to ensure the correct part arrives in the right place on time. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Baxter occupies an important space in the ‘service supply chain’ — helping organizations manage spare parts inventory & provide optimized replacement & replenishment strategies - managing more than 5 million SKUs for a wide range of customers worldwide.
In this deal Polaris Partners exits their majority stake in the business but holds onto a significant minority stake & adds fresh investment from the Polaris Growth Fund.
Autodesk to acquire Wonder Dynamics and their visual effects solution (VFX) Wonder Studio
Overview: Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) have announced they’re acquiring Wonder Dynamics, maker of an AI-powered VFX solution which helps artists more easily animate, light and compose 3D characters within live-action scenes. The two companies had been working together closely in recent months, unsurprising given Autodesk’s Maya is one of the most foremost tools in 3D work and media production. This formal agreement will give Wonder Dynamics the resources needed to accelerate product development with their two founders and team of approx. 66 employees joining Autodesk post acquisition. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Exciting to see Autodesk staying active, with what appears to be their third acquisition announcement of the year. In February they acquired the PIX business of X2X — a media & content collaboration solution — and in January they acquired PayApps, a compliant global payments solution for the construction industry. Autodesk is fascinating in both their constant adaptations & in their ability to bridge across industries with a powerful platform. At first glance, creating AI content for movies seems quite different than planning civil infrastructure for cities but viewed another way they are both complex projects requiring numerous stakeholders & participants and which benefit from Autodesk’s visual planning tools.
Centivo acquires Eden Health and their medical care platform
Overview: Centivo was founded to make quality healthcare more affordable for employers and their employees. This deal helps them accelerate their vision to scale health plans to more working families and employers nationwide. Eden Health’s medical care platform unites primary care, mental health support, and care navigation under a collaborative care model to simplify the complexity that patients typically face, alongside 24/7 virtual and in-person care. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Interesting M&A here - Centivo is a health plan for self-funded employers that focuses on offering affordable & high-quality healthcare, including features like free primary care & no deductibles. Here they acquire a virtual health platform which no doubt will enable them to provide that same (and better) levels of primary care more efficiently.
Eden raised a $60m Series C in 2021, with over $100m raised in total, from a number of blue-chip VCs. Financials on the transaction were not disclosed but telehealth valuations tended to be sky-high in 2021 so quite possible Centivo scored a good deal here.
Skillcrush bought by PowerToFly to bolster their technical upskilling solutions
Overview: Skillcrush’s educational platform guides underrepresented professionals through mentor-led flexible courses in AI, coding, design and related fields. Their integration will reinforce the technical upskilling capabilities of PowerToFly’s talent management platform, which uses AI led hiring solutions across over 20 million profiles to connect underrepresented talent to job roles in highly visible sectors. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Excellent strategic combination of platforms here alongside shared organizational values. Culture fit in M&A is huge for post-integration success and even moreso within businesses with a focus on mission or social impact. Natural fit here with PowerToFly offering a robust talent sourcing & matching platform & Skillcrush focusing on technical upskilling - coding courses designed to take job seekers from no tech knowledge all the way through to enterprise hire in a year or less.
TA Associates backed LeadsOnline acquires Nighthawk.Cloud
Overview: LeadsOnline provides data, technology and intelligence tools to law enforcement agencies across the US, helping them with tasks such as finding people, locations and patterns in criminal locations. By acquiring Nighthawk, they gain a set of analytics and visualization tools for diverse data which are tailored for investigations, thus greatly increasing the analytical capabilities they can offer law enforcement. Read more here.
Climb Comment: Nighthawk offers complex solutions around data management and visualization for law enforcement agencies — think of the digital version of connected strings on posterboard from detective movies. Nighthawk can integrate mapping tools, cellular phone data, security camera footage, social media, & more to help LE agents solve cases.
Nighthawk will add powerful capability to LeadsOnline’s toolkit of solutions for helping agents search nationwide databases of marketplaces, scrapyards, & more to locate stolen property as well as tools to analyze witness/suspect statements, and offer forensic sketches.
Podcast of the Week
Very informative podcast here featuring Matt Lynch of District Capital Partners & Sundance Partners. Highly relevant information around multiples & what drives them, benefits of working with advisors, vertical consolidation & more.
Thanks for following along & hope you found something useful or interesting.
All the best,
Nick