In keeping with our mission to provide comprehensive advertising analysis, MediaRadar puts together a report of the most important mergers and acquisitions news each week. Stay in the loop, whether you sell advertising space or focus on business development.
This week, Facebook bolstered its machine learning assets by purchasing AI.Reverie. Uber brought Drizly under its wing and Comcast strengthened its international presence by acquiring Masergy.
Facebook has completed an acquisition of AI.Reverie, a tech startup that produces synthetic data used for machine learning models.
The buyout was done quietly through a holding company called Dolores Acquisition Sub, Inc., eponymously named after a character from the HBO series WestWorld.
Artificial information developers and engineers may use synthetic data to accelerate machine learning as a stand-in for real data.
Last year AI.Reverie took on a $1.5 million defense contract to build AI algorithms and improve navigation capabilities for the US Air Force. Facebook may be able to use AI.Reverie’s synthetic data to improve computer vision algorithms that detect hate speech and integrate it in virtual reality/augmented reality platforms such as Facebook’s Horizon Workrooms.
Uber Technologies, Inc. announced the completion of its acquisition of alcohol delivery service Drizly for $1.1 billion in cash, including around 18.7 million newly issued shares of Uber common stock.
Drizly will be featured on the UberEats app, but it will also maintain a separate app and website.
Following the deal, Uber announced it is spinning off its cannabis delivery service, Lantern, with new management and a $40 million capital investment from Drizly. Drizly plans to grow and develop independently in the liquor delivery market by capitalizing on Uber’s established network of mobile users.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi noted that on the UberEats app searches for alcohol products have spiked by 200% in the last year.
Comcast has completed its acquisition of Masergy, a SD-WAN provider with more than 1,400 customers across 100 countries.
The deal combines Comcast’s advanced networking and Masegry’s services credentials and can be used to grow Comcast’s business with mid-sized and large US organizations, particularly institutions with multi-site global operations.
By integrating Masergy’s technology, Comcast Business customers will be able to manage their international operations and networks more efficiently.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Other deals and developments are taking place: