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July M&A: A Wicked Good acquisition, and PerkinElmer's $5.25B blockbuster deal

Mergers Acquisition M&A
As we say goodbye to July, it’s time for another M&A roundup. Some major deals took place including the acquisition of Wicked Good Cupcakes by Hickory Farms. Bostonian and Shark Tank host, Kevin O’Leary, invested in Wicked Good Cupcakes during season four of the show.
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By Emma Campbell
August 03, 2021, 10:21am EDT

As we say goodbye to July, it’s time for another M&A roundup. Some major deals took place including the acquisition of Wicked Good Cupcakes by Hickory Farms. Bostonian and Shark Tank host, Kevin O’Leary, invested in Wicked Good Cupcakes during season four of the show. While you’re reading more about cupcake deals, check out the rest of our highlights of the local M&A news that appeared in the BostInno Beat newsletter in July. 

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Here are the highlights from July 2021:

  • Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary made a wicked good investment in a local company. Now, Wicked Good Cupcakes has been acquired by Chicago-based online gift retailer Hickory Farms for an undisclosed sum.
  • Sartorius Stedim Biotech, an international biopharmaceutical company, acquired a majority stake in reagent manufacturer CellGenix GmbH, a gene therapy and cell manufacturing company. CellGenix GmbH is based in Freiburg, Germany with a sales subsidiary near the biotechnology hub in Boston. The acquisition allows Sartorius to grow its technological abilities in its biopharma sector.
  • Kitewheel, a consumer experience management company for large enterprises, was acquired by CSG, a similar customer engagement, revenue management and payments solutions company based in Denver. The acquisition allows Kitewheel's customer engagement technology to expand CSG's global reach.
  • Demand Science, a B2B sales and marketing company for large enterprises, acquired Airborne App Inc., a sales engagement company. The acquisition is Demand Science’s sixth since August 2020 and will further enhance its global B2B data and intelligence solutions for sales and marketing professionals.
  • Boston-based PathAI, a provider of artificial intelligence technology used in pathology, acquired a Memphis-based laboratory-services provider, Poplar Healthcare LLC. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
  • Life sciences giant PerkinElmer Inc. made yet another acquisition, this time the biggest one in its history, buying San Diego, Calif.-based BioLegend for $5.25 billion in cash and stock.
  • Rapid7 Inc. continued its streak of major acquisitions, paying $335 million in cash and stock to acquire New York City-based firm, IntSights Cyber Intelligence Ltd., which delivers cloud-native external threat detection.
  • Chicago firm Coapt acquired Holliston-based prosthetics developer Liberating Technologies.
  • Winsupply Inc., a Dayton, Ohio-area distributor of construction and industrial supplies has acquired Simon’s Supply, one of the most well-established plumbing and heating distributors in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
  • Audax Private Equity has purchased a controlling interest in a Charlotte, North Carolina-based maker of ball bearings and other mechanical power transmission components, Solve Industrial Motion Group, from Incline Equity Partners in Pittsburgh.
  • Parexel, a clinical research organization headquartered in Newton and Durham, N.C., was aquired in a private equity deal worth $8.5 billion. Swedish private equity firm EQT and Goldman Sachs' private equity arm are buying the CRO from Pamplona Capital Management LP, which has owned the company since late 2017.
  • MKS Instruments Inc., a publicly traded manufacturing-instrumentation maker based in Andover, plans to acquire Berlin, Germany-based Atotech Ltd., a specialty chemicals company with about 4,000 employees. The cash-and-stock deal is valued at $5.1 billion.
  • Bountiful Kitchen, a prepared meal and delivery service based in Newton, has been acquired by a Rhode Island company, Feast & Fettle of Providence. 

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