Apparently there’s no summer slump when it comes to mergers and acquisitions.
Companies spent over $167 billion acquiring 100 companies in July, according to CrunchBase data. This figure doesn’t include the 120+ acquisitions with undisclosed amounts, and is greater than June amounts at $109 billion through 96 acquisitions.
One of the biggest reported acquisitions of the month came from pharmaceutical giant AbbVie, which acquired its European rival Shire in a $54.8 billion cash-and-stock deal. This is the biggest acquisition this year, exceeding Medtronic‘s $42.9 billion acquisition of Covidien last month. Online real-estate marketplace Zillow made headlines with their $3.5 billion stock-for-stock acquisition of competitor Trulia, but Zillow also acquired real estate software company Retsly for an undisclosed amount. Retsly had raised a total of $540k in seed funding before being acquired.
Many well-known consumer tech giants came out to play this month with notable deals for streaming services. Google kicked off the month by acquiring music-streaming service Songza for an undisclosed amount, while Apple is on the verge of acquiring Swell (Concept.io), a mobile app that streams personalized audio news, for $30 million. Songza had raised $6.7 million from various firms as well as angels in the entertainment industry, while Concept.io raised $7.2M from top VC firms such as Andreesen Horowitz and DFJ.
Advertising platforms also proved to be valuable to tech giants. Facebook acquired LiveRail, a video monetization platform for publishers, for $500 million early this month, while LinkedIn acquired B2B-marketing platform Bizo for $175 million. LiveRail had raised $12 million mostly from Pond Ventures, and Bizo raised $28.5 million in venture and debt financing.
Palantir Technologies made not one, but two, acquisitions last month, swooping up drag-and-drop app platform Propeller and conversation analysis platform Poptip. According to CrunchBase data (and noted in Fortune), these were Palantir’s second and third acquisitions respectively, despite being in business for over 10 years. The data analysis company made one other acquisition (voice messaging system VoiceGem) in early 2013.
Other companies that made multiple acquisitions in July include Twitter, which acquired payments app platform CardSpring and password-sharing browser extension Mitro; Yahoo!, which acquired ad analytics provider Flurry for $200M and TV-over-IP turnkey solution RayV; and OneVest, which acquired equity crowd-funding platform RockThePost and entrepreneur matchmaking service CoFoundersLab. Apple, LinkedIn, and Google also additionally acquired Booklamp, Newsle, and drawElements respectively.
According to CrunchBase data, companies in biotechnology, consumer products/services, real estate, food, and games had the highest cumulative acquisition prices this month. Biotech dominated mostly through Shire being acquired at $54.8 billion, but cigarette manufacturer Lorillard also had a high price tag of $27.4 billion in cash and stock that competitor Reynolds America could afford.
Other notable acquisitions include CRM giant Salesforce acquiring relationship intelligence platform RelateIQ for $390 million, while Care.com acquired children products community Citrus Lane in a $48.6 million cash-and-stock deal. CitrusLane had raised $6.6 million from Greylock and GGV, and RelateIQ raised $69 million from a slew of VC firms including SV Angel and Accel.
For more on acquisitions, be sure to check out our ever-growing Acquisitions page that we released recently.
Photo via Flickr user Rene Schlegel
