Lucy: It's been a little while since we heard from LogMeIn, which closed its merger with Citrix's GoTo business for $1.8B four months ago. That changed this week.
Dylan: LogMeIn has revealed its first post-merger product, an advanced CRM system called Bold360, that was actually made possible by its merger with GoTo (which gave it more market share) and its 2012 acquisition of a company calledBold Software (which gave it the foundational product for this new release).
Lucy: The company's CRM product is completely focused on the customer service side, putting it in the same category of products as Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud and Pegasystems.
Dylan: However, Bold360 is not meant to replace these systems. Instead, it's intended to augment and complement them, according to Paddy Srinivasan, LogMeIn's former Internet of Things head who is now general manager of the company's customer engagement and support solutions division. That said, LogMeIn would clearly like to become the new dominant tool: Bold360 comes with no-code, point-and-click integrations for Zendesk, Salesforce and other systems so that everything can be viewed from LogMeIn's software."We want to be the best system of engagement, not the best of everything," Srinivasan told me."System of engagement" is a term Srinivasan used a few times in my interview with him, and it's clear that's how he views Bold360. He said the number of interactions happening between companies and their customers is an order of magnitude higher than what legacy CRM systems are able to capture. With Bold360, the goal is to capture all of those interactions — including ones happening across newer channels, like Facebook Messenger — and give companies ways to automate the more repetitive tasks, on both the customer side and the agent side. Read more: LogMeIn Is Getting into the CRM Market with Its 1st Post-Merger Product
Dylan: Remember Foodler? The Boston-based online delivery service is getting acquired by its much larger competitor, Grubhub, for an undisclosed amount. With the Foodler acquisition, Grubhub says it will add more than $80M of annualized gross food sales in 2017, as well as further establish Grubhub in the Northeast. In addition, the company said this will expand Grubhub's restaurant network to cover more than 55K existing restaurant partners and 8.8M active diners. Read more: Grubhub to Acquire Boston-Based Foodler
Lucy: After rumors about the acquisition started spreading at the end of last month, it's official: Microsoft has signed an agreement to buy Boston-based cybersecurity company Hexadite. Although Microsoft said it wasn't disclosing terms of the agreement, a previous report said the tech giant paid $100M. The question is, what is going to happen now to the Hexadite office in Boston? In an email, Microsoft let me know that the company expects a large number of the Hexadite team to join Microsoft as part of the Windows and Devices Group. “Microsoft will be working with the Hexadite team to determine the best options for location,” a Microsoft spokesperson wrote. Read more: It's Official: Microsoft Has Acquired Hexadite
Dylan: There's trouble in beer town. It turns out Budweiser owner Anheuser-Busch InBev has acquired a minority stake in the popular beer rating siteRateBeer, and the craft beer community is now up in arms over the site's future. Boston's Harpoon was one of the breweries to take a hard stance: CEO Dan Kenary tweeted that the company has asked RateBeer to remove Harpoon's and UFO's ratings from the site. Read more: As Anheuser-Busch / RateBeer Fray Intensifies, Local Breweries Wade In
Lucy: Another acquisition to report today. Boston-based Exari announced it has acquired Adsensa, a British provider of contract data discovery, capture and analytics. Terms were not disclosed.
Dylan: MassChallenge and Techstars were named two of the best startup accelerators in a new ranking by the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project. Techstars made the platinum tier while MassChallenge was a level below, in the gold tier. The top two accelerators were Y Combinator and AngelPad, which made the platinum plus tier. The rankings were based on the valuations of participating startups, IPOs or acquisitions of at least $5M and the amount of money startups have raised from investors. Two other factors: the survival rate of participating startup and how satisfied they were.
Dylan: The personnel moves just keep flowing in. First, Mautic, which provides open-source marketing automation software, has named former Netezza CEO Jit Saxena to its board of directors. Saxeno has served on the boards of multiple local tech companies, including Actifio, Applause and Demandware. We named Mautic as one of BostInno's 17 startups to watch in 2017 after it raised $5M from local VC firms and named former Applause exec Matt Johnston as its CEO.
Lucy: Secondly, Diane Hessan, founder and chairman of C Space, has joined the advisory board of RallyPoint, a social network for the military community. Previously, Hessan was CEO at Startup Institute.
Dylan: Lastly, I saw on LinkedIn that Jon Marcus, founder and former CEO of Bedrock Data, has left the startup and joined local VC firm .406 Ventures as an entrepreneur-in-residence.
Dylan: Here are some events coming up next week: TUGG's Pledging with Purpose on Monday, PULSE@MassChallenge's awards ceremony is on Tuesday and Mass Inno Nights holds an African-American founder showcase on Wednesday. Find more Boston tech and startup events in BostInno Approved.
Lucy: Ready for a Facebook Live party? Union Capital Boston is hosting its inaugural gala in live streaming next Thursday, June 15 at 7:00 p.m. Here's the address — pardon — the link: fb.com/unioncapitalboston.
Lucy: A couple of months ago, I wrote a short story about what business and playing poker have in common. This time, thanks to WiTricity CFO Don Peck, I got the chance to explore what qualities you need to have to be good at both business and classical singing. No. 1: Look the part. Read more: 3 Things You Need to Know to Be Good at Both Business and Singing
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