News
HR and finance software provider Workday has acquired Denmark-based SaaS company and ’employee success platform’ provider Peakon for roughly $700 million in cash.
Workday said that with Peakon, it will “provide organizations with a continuous listening platform, including real-time visibility into employee experience, sentiment, and productivity”, in an effort to help drive employee engagement and improve organisational performance in a world that has been profoundly changed by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Bringing Peakon into the Workday family will be very compelling to our customers – especially following an extraordinary past year that has magnified the importance of having a constant pulse on employee sentiment in order to keep people engaged and productive,” said Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and co-CEO of Workday.
Originally launched back in 2016, Peakon was backed by the likes of Atomico, EQT Ventures, IDInvest Partners, Balderton Capital, and Sunstone/Heartcore, raising about $68 million along the way.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of Workday’s fiscal year 2022, ending April 30, 2021, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
Boohoo, a Manchester-based online fashion giant quite popular in the UK, has acquired London-based retailer Debenhams’ brand and other business assets including, all the in-house brands and websites in recent development. The company has paid a cash consideration of £55 million to acquire the global rights to Debenhams brands and its websites.
However, this is not the first time Boohoo bought a company that’s out of administration. Back in 2019, Boohoo bought online businesses of Karen Millen and Coast for £18.2 million.
Click here to find out more..
Feelunique has recorded strong sales growth across its retail and marketplace channels during the Christmas period.
For the 12-week period to January 3, 2021, Feelunique saw its overall sales grow 39 per cent to £28 million, while active customers over the period rose 41 per cent to 1.3 million.
Sales of skincare products boosted the overall company’s growth, with sales up 57 per cent, while sales through Feelunique’s third-party marketplace channel increased tenfold year on year.
Click here to find out more..
The UK government has been thrust into a software skills crisis with more than a quarter of development positions, 28%, unfilled across various key departments.
The number of software developers employed across a dozen central government departments amounted to 808, while there were 317 unfilled vacancies, according to Freedom of Information (FOI) data obtained by Acquia.
The data was collated from departments including the Cabinet Office, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and the Treasury, among others, and the information was accurate as of September 2020.
Click here to find out more..
Octopus Ventures, one of the largest and most active VCs in Europe, is looking to launch a new £100 million institutional global fund to take advantage of the health tech market opportunity, in particular the opportunity to transform public healthcare systems across Europe and the emerging markets.
With this Joe Stringer, Dr Pooja Sikka and Shamik Parekh from TenX Health have joined Octopus Ventures bringing their diverse experience in the digital healthcare space. Joe and Pooja were former founding members of EY Ventures, which leads the health and social care portfolio.
The news follows swiftly on the heels of Emma Davies joining Octopus Ventures as Co-CEO this month, bringing over 20 years of institutional fund management expertise, and Octopus’ announcement in October that it had scaled its portfolio team by 45% with nine new hires, as well as launching a new specialist consumer team.
Click here to find out more..
Wolt, the Helsinki-based online ordering and delivery company that initially focused on restaurants but has since expanded to other verticals, has raised $530 million in new funding. The round was led by Iconiq Growth, with participation from Tiger Global, DST, KKR, Prosus, EQT Growth and Coatue.
Previous backers 83North, Highland Europe, Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, EQT Ventures and Vintage Investment Partners also followed on. The new round takes the total amount of financing Wolt has raised to $856 million. Wolt declined to disclose the company’s latest valuation, although we know from the previous D round that the company is one of Europe’s so-called unicorns.
Since launching with 10 restaurants in its home city in 2015, five years on Wolt has expanded to 23 countries and 120 cities, mostly in Europe but also including Japan and Israel. More recently, like others in the restaurant delivery space, Wolt has expanded beyond restaurants and takeout food into the grocery and retail sectors. This, says the company, sees it offer anything from cosmetics to pet food and pharmaceuticals on its platform.
Click here to find out more..
Asos says it is in "exclusive" talks to buy Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands out of administration.
But the online retailer said it only wanted the brands, not their shops, suggesting any deal would cost jobs.
The current owner of the brands, Sir Philip Green's Arcadia Group, fell into administration last November putting 13,000 jobs at risk.
Asos said it was "a compelling opportunity" to buy "strong brands that resonate well with its customer base".
Click here to find out more..
The coronavirus pandemic has caused exceptionally challenging and worrying times for each and every one of us. Where does that leave our tech entrepreneurs? UKTN decided to ask ‘one question’ to some of the most significant founders in the UK tech ecosystem: What are the most effective techniques they were following to manage stress during these COVID-times and what would they suggest to other founders?
Find out what they said here.
Online card retailer Moonpig has confirmed that it plans to go public on the London Stock Exchange in a £1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) float next month.
Demand for the company’s cards and gifts has surged during the coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. investors BlackRock and Dragoneer have agreed to spend £130 million on Moonpig shares when shares start trading in February.
Click here to find out more..
The U.K.’s largest sports apparel retailer has ramped up its presence in the U.S. sneaker market with the $495 million acquisition of Baltimore-based sportswear company DTLR Villa.
The deal is the third inked in the U.S. by JD Sports as it stakes its claim in the North American market – backed by major brands such as Adidas and Nike - and comes just a few weeks after JD Sports bought California-based Shoe Palace, as it gears up to expand its interests in the north and east of the U.S.
JD Sports also acquired Finish Line of Indianapolis in 2018 and the company opened its first five U.S. stores under the JD brand the same year before launching a spectacular 32,000 sq ft flagship outlet in New York’s Times Square on October 19 last year. At 26%, the U.S. already represents over a quarter of global revenue, matching sales across Europe.
Despite store lockdowns in its domestic market, the sportswear group has maintained its sales performance thanks in part to the growth of the casual leisurewear sector amid multiple lockdowns that have largely kept people at home.
Click here to read more..