Acquisition

Two Polish online payment systems, Dotpay and eCard, will join forces and expand in Central and Eastern Europe. The two companies are part of MCI.EuroVentures' fund portfolio and are specialized in online electronic payments. The company established as a result of their integration wants to become the market leader in Poland.

Descartes, a provider of SaaS logistics software solutions, has acquired Pixi, a German solutions provider for ecommerce order fulfilment and warehouse management. Pixi's ERP software is currently integrated with hundreds of ecommerce sites in Europe and has offices in Munich, Leipzig and Slovenia.

French ecommerce company Vente-Privée.com has improved its position in Europe after buying Privalia, a Spanish online fashion outlet. The value of the sale hasn't been officially disclosed, but rumors say Vente-Privée is the new owner after paying 500 million euros for the Spanish ecommerce player.

Veeqo, a Wales company that offers ecommerce inventory software, has acquired UK parcel delivery startup ParcelBright. The acquisition should help Veeqo with achieving its goal of making selling easier for online sellers. ParcelBright’s service and software will be merged into Veeqo, with a focus on further improving its online sellers' productivity.

Strategic investor VDD SAS has acquired Pixmania, the French ecommerce retailer that was previously owned by Mutares. This German company bought Pixmania in 2013 during a repositioning process with the goal to sell the company again when it has shown clear operational improvement. Pixmania is now part of a company that also owns and runs French online store Vente Du Diable.

Personal shopping service Modomoto from Germany has acquired The Cloakroom, a similar service from the Netherlands. With the acquisition and an additional investment from the former CEO of Booking.com, Modomoto is now forming the Curated Shopping Group, ready to conquer the European market. The company didn't disclose how much they paid for The Cloakroom.

The British super market chain Sainsbury's has acquired Home Retail Group for 1.3 billion pounds, or 1.7 billion euros. With the acquisition Sainsbury's wants to fight the competition from Amazon in the United Kingdom as well as being better capable of delivering foods and drinks that are ordered online at the customer's home.

Supermarket chain J Sainsbury disclosed yesterday that a 1 billion pounds bid for Home Retail, owner of retailer Argos, was rejected two months ago. It's now thinking about making a formal offer. With the desired acquisition of Home Retail, which also owns Homebase, Sainsbury's wants to fight the competition of online ecommerce giant Amazon and discount supermarkets Lidl and Aldi.

Private-equity firm Carlyle will acquire Dutch lingerie retailer Hunkemöller from PAI Partners. Capital for the purchase will come from the European-focused buyout fund Carlyle Europe Partners IV. The value of the transaction is not disclosed, but is probably around 440 million euros.

UK-based technology company Ve Interactive has acquired the Display Retargeting business from eBay Enterprise Marketing Solutions, a recently launched independent company. Now Ve has a client base of more than 10,000 online businesses. All employees from the eBay Enterprise Display Retargeting business will be retained.

Royal Mail has announced it acquired eCourier, a same day delivery company that operates mainly in the Greater London area, although offering nationwide distribution. Royal Mail already has Royal Mail Sameday, but by combining eCourier and its existing courier business, the British postal service company can become a significant player in the UK same day delivery market.

Lightspeed POS, a point-of-sale platform for retailers and restaurants, today announced the acquisition of Dutch ecommerce software company SEOshop. As part of this acquisition, Lightspeed launches its new ecommerce platform, called Lightspeed eCom.

Quotient has announced it acquired Shopmium, a French mobile cash-back app that's similar to ibotta and Checkout51. With the acquisition, Quotient has a new way to reach customers through their mobile devices. And of course, by incorporating Shopmium, Quotient now also has more data in house so it could better personalize and target media and promotions.

ACI Worldwide has announced it acquired German ecommerce payments solutions provider PAY.ON. The global provider of e-payment and banking solutions acquired 100 percent of PAY.ON's equity in a combination of cash and stock. PAY.ON is now being valued at 180 million euros.

Docdata, a Dutch company that’s specialized in e-fulfilment, return logistics and online payment services, has sold its ecommerce arm to the American company Ingram Micro for 175 million dollars (€153.4 million). Docdata claims becoming part of Ingram will give the company the necessary scale to compete with other ecommerce service providers.