Chinese Expansion

While everybody freaks out about the Meltdown and Spectre microprocessor exposures, life goes on in much of the tech world.

Well, sort of.

TechCrunch reported yesterday that the U.S. Government has blocked the proposed acquisition of global payment service MoneyGram by Alibaba’s Ant Financial.

This is the second China-led acquisition of a U.S. tech company that has “failed” during U.S. President Trump’s tenure. The first was last September when a private equity group was blocked from purchasing Lattice Semiconductor due to “potential security risks.”

Here’s the background from TechCrunch:

Ant Financial, the Alibaba affiliate which controls Alipay — China’s top mobile wallet — and other financial services, announced a deal to buy Nasdaq-listed MoneyGram in April 2017 after it beat off a rival bid from Euronet. Ant initially bid for MoneyGram in January 2017 as a means to develop its cross-border payment network into the U.S., and major corridors including India and the Philippines, but instead it will “explore and develop initiatives” to collaborate with MoneyGram’s business.
– via TechCrunch

The article goes on to suggest that “the collapse of the deal is a huge blow to Ant, which spent much of 2017 developing its mobile payment network beyond China and into Southeast Asia, India, Korea, Japan and other parts of Asia with a series of partnerships and investments.”

As Confucius said, “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” That includes Uncle Sam.

On the other hand, nothing’s stopping the Chinese in Brazil!

SiliconANGLE reported that the Chinese ride-hailing firm, Didi Chuxing, bought Brazilian car booking service 99 Corp. yesterday for some $600M.

99 is Brazil’s version of Uber, writes SiliconANGLE, and has some 300,000 drivers and 14 million users in 400 cities across Brazil.

The deal is notable not only as a major acquisition in a large marketplace but also because it marks the beginning of Didi Chuxing’s international expansion. The Chinese giant was first reported to be expanding into Mexico in December with a ground-up strategy as opposed to an acquisition. Its global ambitions were finally laid bare when it said Dec. 21 that its latest round would in part be dedicated to its international expansion. The other takeaway from the deal is that Didi Chuxing is willing to acquire companies it has previously invested in, meaning there’s a swath of companies on Didi’s radar. To date, Didi is a large investor in Southeast Asia’s GrabTaxi Holdings Pte. Ltd. and India’s Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd.), with smaller investments in Eastern Europe-focused Taxify OU, the Middle East’s Careem and last but certainly not least Lyft Inc., Uber’s largest rival in the United States.
– via SiliconANGLE

Et tu, Uber?

Austin’s WP Engine Garners $250M Investment

Big investment news here in Austin today.

The Austin Business Journal’s Mike Cronin is reporting that Silver Lake Partners — the same firm that took Dell private — has invested $250M in Austin’s WP Engine, a WordPress hosting firm.

The massive funding from Silver Lake Partners will “accelerate innovation” and “fuel future growth internationally,” according to the announcement.
– via Austin Business Journal

The story also indicates WP Engine executives announced that the company achieved $100M in annual recurring revenue, and now has more than 75K customers around the world.

“We are partnering with Silver Lake because of their incredible track record as technology investors, their understanding of digital platform businesses like ours and because of the alignment in core values we share,” said Heather Brunner, WP Engine’s chairwoman and CEO, in a statement. “This partnership will help us further invest in our Digital Experience Platform and bring the power of our platform to WordPress users all around the globe,” Brunner said.
– via Austin Business Journal

#whyaustin