July 29, 2013 TRANSACTION VOLUME IN THE ONLINE AND MOBILE INDUSTRY SHOWS SIGNS OF STRENGTH

Berkery Noyes’ Online and Mobile report for half year 2013 showed an uptick in transaction activity. Deal volume increased seven percent relative to the prior half year period, from 953 to 1,015 transactions. However, value decreased 29 percent, from $32.54 billion in second half 2012 to $23.16 billion in first half 2013.

SaaS & Cloud was the most active market segment and underwent a 15 percent increase in volume, totaling 291 transactions year-to-date. M&A activity in the Communications segment improved 22 percent since second half 2012, making it the sector with the largest half-to-half year increase. One notable Communications transaction in first half 2013 was Dropbox’s acquisition of mobile email application Mailbox.

In addition, acquirers are looking to add mobile solutions that aggregate relevant content in relation to individual users, as news is shared in real-time. There were several deals over the past six months that focused on news summary and content sharing, such as LinkedIn’s acquisition of Pulse for $90 million, Google’s acquisition of Wavii for $30 million, and Yahoo!’s acquisition of Summly for $30 million.

“Mobile continues to be a strong driver of M&A activity in the information marketplace,” stated Mary Jo Zandy, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes. “Content delivery methods are evolving, and acquirers in general are showing more interest in semantic technologies that improve the end-user experience.”