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Minnesota's tech companies and startups reported a significant number of acquisitions within the last year.
This is not a complete list of all the Minnesota companies that were bought and sold within 2019. For the sake of this list, we're focusing on local startups and technology companies. But if we're analyzing the state's M&A scene as a whole, 3M, UnitedHealth and TCF led the Twin Cities in deals this year, according to the Biz Journal.
Below is Minne Inno's list of the local startups that were acquired or made acquisitions in 2019:
Startups That Were Acquired
- GoKart Labs was acquired by West Monroe Partners, a Chicago-based consulting firm with a presence in the Twin Cities. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but West Monroe said that its acquisition of GoKart is the largest in its 17-year history.
- FastBridge Learning, a Minneapolis-based ed-tech startup, was scooped up by Irvine, Calif.-based Illuminate Education. The acquisition formalized a long-time partnership between the two companies. FastBridge was the second-fastest growing company in Minnesota last year, according to the Biz Journal.
- In April, local news site TECHdotMN was acquired by SureSwift Capital. The company was SureSwift's first acquisition of a Minnesota company. The firm has made 32 acquisitions since it was founded in 2014.
- Excelsior-based CareWire, a company that uses texting to drive patient engagement, was purchased by Knoxville, Tenn.-based company PerfectServe, a provider of cloud-based clinical communication and collaboration tools.
- CoreBiome, a medical startup that utilizes University of Minnesota research to analyze tiny organisms, was acquired by OraSure Technologies Inc.
- Insite Software, a Minneapolis-based company offering B2B e-commerce software, was snapped up by Nashua, N.H.-based Episerver. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Prior to the acquisition, Insite was one of the 20 largest SaaS companies in the Twin Cities.
- CotterWeb Enterprises, which operates sites like InboxDollars.com, was acquired by Prodege LLC, the parent company of multiple online consumer-rewards programs.
Companies That Made Acquisitions
- Twin Cities electronic waste recycler Tech Dump expanded its footprint nationally with the acquisition of Scrubb.IT, a mail-in electronics program. St. Paul-based Scrubb was launched by a group of local tech entrepreneurs. Prior to the acquisition, the company had worked with Tech Dump since 2014, when it got involved as the company’s recycling provider.
- In June, Minneapolis-based tech startup 26 Letters scooped up Hack the Gap, a local group that organizes hackathons for women and nonbinary people in Twin Cities tech. This was 26 Letters' first acquisition.
- Hoonuit, a Little Falls-based data management and analytics platform for education providers, made three acquisitions in 2019. Most recently, it purchased Philadelphia-based Tembo. In April, it purchased Plano, Texas-based Mizuni, and in June it scooped up Irvine, Calif.-based Decision Insite.
- In early December, local software development firm HelpSystems announced plans to acquire Clearswift, a UK-based cybersecurity company. HelpSystems also acquired the Core Security division of Irvine, Calif.-based SecureAuth Corp.
- Hopkins-based Digi International made its largest acquisition to date in November when it scooped up Opengear, an Edison, N.J.-based IT software company. Digi agreed to spend $140 million in cash on the deal, with the possibility of an extra $15 million based on revenue performance in 2020.
- Jamf made two acquisitions in 2019. In February, it purchased ZuluDesk, a Dutch company that makes educational technology for classrooms. Five months later, Jamf announced that it had acquired Digita Security, a startup creating software that protects Mac users from malicious activities and threats.
- Local real estate tech startup HomeSpotter completed its first acquisition in January, snapping up a Canadian company called Spacio that makes digital tools used by real estate agents for open houses.
- Growing Minneapolis-based BioTechne scooped up two companies in the last year. It has now acquired 14 businesses within the last five years. It first purchased B-MoGen Biotechnologies, a company founded in 2015 by a group of U of M researchers. Bio-Techne also snapped up Exosome Diagnostics, a Massachusetts company whose technology tests for disease by scanning body fluids.
- Ascentis Corp., a local technology company that makes human resources software, acquired Integrated Time Solutions, a Milwaukee-based labor-management software firm. It also purchased Cincinnati Time Systems, which makes technology to track employee attendance, compliance and other HR-related functions. Ascentis is located in Eden Prairie but was originally founded in California.
- Minneapolis-based Calabrio, which makes call-center software, acquired Swedish workforce management company Teleopti in its first major deal since selling to private equity in 2016.
