June 19, 2012 GOOGLE’S M&A ACTIVITY STARTING TO PICK UP

After an unusually quiet first quarter, Google’s M&A activity in the Information Industry as tracked by Berkery Noyes has started to increase. Google made its first transaction of the year back in April, acquiring TxVia, a payments processing platform to go along with Google Wallet. Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings for $11.9 billion closed in May, and the search engine giant has already acquired KikScore, Meebo, and Quickoffice thus far in June.  

Meebo, one of the aforementioned acquired companies, is a startup that helps online publishers connect their websites with social network sites. A similar deal that occurred recently was MyLife.com’s acquisition of Threadsy, an integrated communication client. MyLife enables users to access their email and social accounts in one place, which is similar to Thready’s technology. With this acquisition, MyLife plans to bolster its Personal Relationship Manager (PRM) for its 60 million members.

Google’s overall M&A strategy remains focused on startups and acquiring new technologies. Following Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, there has been speculation that Google may be interested in Pinterest or a similar type of visual oriented company.  Google has mentioned the need to improve its video discovery tools, and Pinterest would be a valuable asset to Google+. However, there is no indication that Pinterest would be willing to sell, especially after just raising $100 million in its latest round of funding.  Nonetheless, such a transaction would be one of Google’s most important strategic moves since acquiring YouTube in 2006 for $1.7 billion.