AI & Machine Learning Acquisitions in 2020

Cognizant acquired UK-based AI and machine learning consultancy Inawisdom to bolster its data, analytics and cloud-native AI capabilities. The deal brings Inawisdom's AWS-focused ML expertise and RAMP platform into Cognizant's Digital Business group; financial terms were not disclosed.

Infogain, a ChrysCapital-backed digital platform and software engineering company, acquired Absolutdata, an AI and advanced analytics provider, adding Absolutdata's NAVIK AI platform and analytics capabilities to Infogain's portfolio. The acquisition expands Infogain's data, analytics and AI offerings and positions the combined company to deliver end-to-end digital transformation solutions to enterprise clients.

RingCentral acquired DeepAffects, a conversational intelligence startup, to integrate advanced speech, speaker and emotion-recognition AI into its meetings and collaboration platform. The deal closed in Q4 2020 for undisclosed terms and is intended to enhance RingCentral's pre-, in- and post-meeting experiences for enterprise customers.

Unity has acquired Tel Aviv-based RestAR, a computer vision and deep learning startup that converts mobile video into high-quality 3D/AR product models. The acquisition brings RestAR's AI-based 3D capture technology into Unity's platform (including Unity Forma) to help brands, retailers, and marketers create digital twins and interactive RT3D marketing experiences.

Ripcord has acquired Engine ML, a deep-learning infrastructure company backed by Kleiner Perkins and Catapult, to embed accelerated deep learning into Ripcord’s AI- and robotics-driven document digitization platform. The acquisition is intended to speed model development and enable customers in finance, insurance, retail and energy to extract actionable insights from semi-structured and unstructured data much faster.

Onit, Inc. acquired New Zealand-based AI legal-tech company McCarthyFinch to integrate its contract-review artificial intelligence into Onit's Precedent intelligence platform and enhance contract lifecycle and workflow automation capabilities. The acquisition brings McCarthyFinch's AI expertise and team into Onit's AI Center of Excellence to accelerate product innovation across Onit's legal operations and contract management offerings.

Smarsh has agreed to acquire Digital Reasoning, a leader in natural language processing, AI, and machine learning, to combine Smarsh's electronic communications archiving and supervision capabilities with Digital Reasoning's advanced analytics. The deal—announced November 10, 2020—is intended to create a "Communications Intelligence" offering for risk, compliance and business insight; financial terms were not disclosed and the transaction was expected to close within 60 days. Barclays acted as exclusive financial advisor to Digital Reasoning.

Shutterstock, Inc. acquired certain assets of Amper Music, an AI-driven music composition platform, and will integrate Amper's technology and employees into Shutterstock to strengthen its AI-powered music search, discovery, and editing capabilities. Terms were not disclosed; the deal brings Amper's creative AI, proprietary sample library and engineering talent into Shutterstock's product and R&D efforts.

Navigate360 has acquired Social Sentinel, an AI- and linguistics-based software platform that scans digital conversations to identify potential safety threats and mental-health signals. The purchase integrates Social Sentinel’s threat-detection capabilities into Navigate360’s tip-reporting, behavioral threat assessment and safety training offerings to expand its proactive prevention tools for schools and businesses.

American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) has acquired AI and messaging start-up 30SecondsToFly to integrate its conversational, AI-powered self-service technology into GBT's mobile and messaging channels. The acquisition (closed October 8) will enhance GBT's traveler messaging and automated servicing capabilities while the 30SecondsToFly AI developers join GBT's technology team; terms were not disclosed.

Parexel has completed the purchase of the natural language processing (NLP) technology assets and transfer of key personnel from Roam Analytics. The acquisition is intended to strengthen Parexel's AI/ML capabilities and immediately enhance its pharmacovigilance and real-world data offerings by applying Roam's NLP to unstructured healthcare data.

MaxLinear, Inc. (NYSE: MXL) completed the acquisition of NanoSemi, Inc., a Boston-based MIT spinout that develops patented machine-learning IP to improve signal integrity and power efficiency in SoCs, ASICs and FPGAs. The initial consideration included $10 million in cash and 804,163 shares of MaxLinear common stock, plus $35 million in deferred cash and up to $35 million in potential earnouts; the deal expands MaxLinear's capabilities for 5G and wireless system customers.

Investcorp announced a strategic investment in Terminus Technologies, a China-based AIoT company that provides AI CITY and smart services. The investment is intended to support Terminus's growth and its ambition to expand deployment of AI and IoT smart-city solutions globally.

Cisco announced its intent to acquire BabbleLabs, an AI-driven speech enhancement and noise-removal startup, to integrate native noise removal and voice enhancement into the Webex collaboration platform. The acquisition brings BabbleLabs' technology and engineering team into Cisco Collaboration to improve meeting audio quality and privacy by processing noise removal at the client side.

SugarCRM acquired AI platform Node Inc. on August 24, 2020 to integrate Node's predictive customer-intelligence capabilities into Sugar's time-aware CX platform. The deal adds forecasting and predictive analytics functionality to SugarCRM's sales, marketing and service offerings to improve customer predictability and engagement.

Informatica has acquired GreenBay Technologies to integrate advanced AI/ML capabilities—particularly entity and schema matching and metadata knowledge graphs—into its CLAIRE engine and Intelligent Data Platform. The acquisition strengthens Informatica's data integration, master data management, and data quality roadmap to accelerate automated data matching, lineage inference, and metadata-driven intelligence for enterprise customers.

365 Retail Markets, a McCarthy Capital‑backed provider of self-service point-of-sale solutions, acquired Oakland-based smart-store technology company Stockwell. 365 will integrate Stockwell's computer-vision, AI and machine-learning platform into its 365 POS ecosystem, hire select team members, and continue to support Stockwell's 1,000+ installed locations.

Reveal Data Corporation has acquired NexLP, an AI-driven eDiscovery software provider, and will integrate NexLP's Story Engine AI and data science team into Reveal's review platform. Jay Leib, NexLP co-founder and CEO, joins Reveal as EVP of Innovation & Strategy; terms were not disclosed and Reveal — which is majority-owned by Gallant Capital Partners — worked with Houlihan Lokey and Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth on the transaction.

OnSolve, a provider of mass notification and critical event management solutions, acquired Stabilitas, an AI-driven situational awareness and threat intelligence platform. The acquisition integrates Stabilitas' real-time AI-based event detection and risk analysis with OnSolve's critical communications and incident management capabilities to deliver end-to-end critical event management for enterprise and government customers.

Mailchimp has acquired Inspector 6, an AI platform that analyzes marketing content and provides recommendations to improve performance. The acquisition brings Inspector 6’s text and visual analytics capabilities into Mailchimp’s marketing platform and adds founder John Wolf to Mailchimp as Principal Product Manager, Smart Content.

Syniti acquired Virtyx Technologies, Inc. in an asset purchase, bringing Virtyx's cloud-native AI monitoring and analytics technology and engineering talent into Syniti's Knowledge Platform. The deal is intended to accelerate Syniti's cloud-first, AI-driven capabilities for data quality, governance, and data migration solutions.

Core Scientific has acquired certain assets and technology of Atrio Inc., a performance-critical AI and High Performance Computing (HPC) cloud services company, to strengthen its AI and HPC cloud capabilities. As part of the transaction, Atrio's former CEO Max Alt joins Core Scientific as Senior Vice President of Artificial Intelligence Technology and Atrio's developers and service providers have agreed to work with Core Scientific.

Jobvite acquired the artificial intelligence and data science team from Predictive Partner, bringing Morgan Llewellyn on as Jobvite's Chief Data Scientist to accelerate native AI capabilities across its talent acquisition suite. The move integrates Predictive Partner's expertise in machine learning, NLP, and predictive analytics to enhance Jobvite's candidate engagement scoring and intelligent matching features.

Planview has acquired Aptage, an AI/ML specialist focused on applying machine learning to portfolio and work management to provide early insights into project value and delivery risk. The acquisition embeds Aptage's AI/ML IP across the Planview product portfolio and brings Aptage co-founders John Heintz and Dr. Murray Cantor into Planview to lead AI/product and data science roles.

ModalityIQ has acquired The Machine Learning Conference (MLconf) to expand its community-based learning and knowledge-sharing offerings for the ML/AI community. MLconf, founded by Courtney and Shon Burton in 2012, hosts in-person conferences, a blog, job board and a YouTube channel; Courtney Burton will join the ModalityIQ team following the acquisition.

AE Industrial Partners acquired a majority interest in NuWave Solutions, a provider of data management, advanced analytics, AI/ML, and cloud solutions serving the U.S. federal government. AEI will position NuWave as a standalone platform to expand its Defense & Government Services capabilities, and named industry veterans Dr. Reggie Brothers as CEO and Michael Buscher as Chief Growth Officer.

Kinaxis Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Toronto-based Rubikloud for US$60 million in an all-cash transaction. The acquisition brings Rubikloud’s AI/ML-driven demand forecasting and promotion optimization SaaS capabilities (and ~80 employees) into Kinaxis’s RapidResponse platform to expand its demand-planning capabilities and accelerate entry into the enterprise retail and CPG markets.

KKR has made a minority equity investment in o9 Solutions, valuing the AI-powered integrated business planning platform at over $1 billion. The funding (from KKR Next Generation Technology Growth Fund II) is o9's first external capital raise and will be used to accelerate go-to-market initiatives, global expansion and continued product development.

NVIDIA Corporation completed its acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. on April 27, 2020 for a transaction value of $7 billion. The deal combines NVIDIA's AI and compute capabilities with Mellanox's high-performance networking products to deliver end-to-end solutions for next-generation data centers and high-performance computing customers.

Medallia, the San Francisco–based experience management SaaS provider, agreed to acquire Pittsburgh-based Voci Technologies, a real-time speech-to-text and AI transcription platform, for approximately $59 million in cash. The deal, announced April 22, 2020, is expected to close in May 2020 and will integrate Voci's real-time speech-to-text and deep-learning capabilities into the Medallia Experience Cloud to enhance contact-center analytics and customer experience insights.

Sumitomo Corporation of Americas (SCOA) announced a strategic investment in Origin Wireless to accelerate the company's integration of its AI-enabled Wi‑Fi sensing technology with 5G and expand its product offerings. The partnership positions SCOA to apply Origin’s wireless AITM solutions across Sumitomo’s diverse businesses — from healthcare and security to logistics and infrastructure — unlocking new go-to-market opportunities.

Epic Games has acquired Cubic Motion, a Manchester-based developer of real-time facial animation and computer vision technology, from NorthEdge Capital. The acquisition brings Cubic Motion’s IP and team into Epic’s Unreal Engine group to accelerate development of photorealistic digital humans and related real-time animation capabilities.

RadNet, Inc. has executed a definitive agreement to acquire DeepHealth, Inc., a Cambridge-based radiology AI and machine learning company focused on mammography and 3D breast imaging. The deal is structured as an initial share payment with up to additional milestone-based stock payments and aims to integrate DeepHealth's team and technology into RadNet's AI strategy to improve imaging interpretation and workflow efficiency.

Unity Technologies has acquired Artomatix, a Dublin‑based AI-driven 3D content creation company and maker of ArtEngine. Artomatix will join Unity and continue operating out of Dublin, with Unity planning to grow the Dublin team and integrate Artomatix's AI tools to accelerate high-fidelity content creation across games, VFX, automotive and design industries.

DocuSign announced the acquisition of contract analytics and AI provider Seal Software for $188 million in cash. The deal brings Seal's AI-driven contract analytics into the DocuSign Agreement Cloud to enhance CLM and automated contract intelligence.

Freshworks Inc. acquired AnsweriQ Inc., an AI/ML company that provides automated self-service and intelligent process automation for customer service, to augment Freshworks' Freddy AI and scale enterprise customer self-service capabilities. The acquisition expands Freshworks' enterprise AI capabilities and adds talent and a Seattle presence to its product and customer success teams.

ROYBI Inc., maker of the Roybi Robot, has acquired KidSense.AI, an embedded and cloud-based speech-recognition and Edge-AI platform built specifically for children. The acquisition will integrate KidSense.AI’s child-focused ASR and multilingual voice dataset into ROYBI’s language-learning robot to accelerate language expansion, improve accuracy, and maintain child data privacy compliance.

ServiceNow announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Passage AI, a Mountain View–based conversational AI platform, to accelerate native deep‑learning conversational capabilities and broaden multilingual support across the Now Platform. The deal (terms undisclosed) is expected to close by the end of Q1 2020 and will enhance ServiceNow Virtual Agent, Service Portal, Workspaces and other products.

Cactus Communications has acquired UNSILO, a Denmark-based AI and NLP company that builds text-analytics tools for publishers. The purchase expands Cactus's AI capabilities and product suite for the scientific, publishing and pharmaceutical markets by integrating UNSILO's classification, recommendation and editorial-assist technologies.

LiveVox, a cloud customer engagement platform provider, has acquired SpeechIQ, an AI-driven speech analytics and quality assurance platform headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. The acquisition strengthens LiveVox’s workforce optimization (WFO) and speech analytics capabilities, enabling deeper insights from call recordings and improved customer engagement for contact centers.

Digital Dream Labs has acquired the robotics and artificial intelligence assets of Anki, obtaining ownership of product lines including Cozmo, Vector, and Overdrive without taking on liabilities. The Pittsburgh-based edtech and consumer-robotics company plans to relaunch the products with updates and new features and will engage the existing fan base as it restores services and functionality.