Contact: Ben Kolada
No stranger to inorganic growth, video asset management provider KIT digital just announced three acquisitions worth $77m. The company’s recent dealmaking brings its total M&A spending to $151m since 2006 – a hefty sum considering that KIT currently sports just a $350m market cap. While similarly sized firms might stop for a breather, KIT plans to announce another large purchase by the end of the quarter.
KIT has bought KickApps, Kyte and Kewego as it continues to consolidate the video asset management market and add social media to its platform. Kyte, the least expensive of the three targets, will provide KIT with mobile video content delivery while Paris-based Kewego provides a video distribution software platform for internal communications to enterprises in the EMEA region. KickApps, arguably the most valuable of the acquired assets, provides social media software for interactive video to enterprises. (A side note: KickApps is betting the farm on the role that social media will play in KIT’s evolving business – the company’s equity holders took their $45m payout entirely in KIT digital stock.)
As if announcing three acquisitions at once isn’t enough, the company claims to be on track to close another large transaction by the end of the quarter. KIT wouldn’t comment on who its next target would be, and the video asset management market is still too fragmented to tell which companies are on KIT’s radar. But we expect that the new target will continue KIT’s M&A strategy of buying companies for geographic expansion, entry into new verticals and complementary technology. KIT will pay for its new property out of the proceeds from its recently closed IPO, which netted $103m.
KIT’s triple play
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Source: The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase