Google Workspace Partners with Miro, MindTickle enters the Unicorn Club and more

Google Workspace and Miro announce a new partnership

An online collaboration whiteboard platform - Miro announced a new partnership with Google Workspace to help teams collaborate more easily and effectively, virtually or in-person. With more organizations becoming hybrid and digital-first, the need for tools that facilitate seamless engagement, innovation, and collaboration equity amongst teams has never been greater; a study from Accenture found that 83% of respondents identified a hybrid model as being optimal in the future - Integrated functionality in Google Workspace and Miro will make it easier for teams to ideate and co-create both asynchronously and in real time within Google Meet and across Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.

This collaboration will enable a smoother and more flexible collaboration experience integrating product capabilities across multiple fronts. In addition to importing and live-editing existing Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides on Miro boards some new functions will start rolling out in early 2022, will enable teams to:

1. Making Google Calendar more user friendly by enabling the feature to Attach and share any Miro board directly to ensure all attendees are prepped and ready to collaborate during meetings and workshops.
2. Bringing in the ease in communication by providing auto-sync while you draw a  diagram and add text and shapes to connect the dots between Docs, Sheets, and Slides on a Miro board to visualize connection points between work.
3. By launching integrated, dynamic and collaborative Miro Boards within Google Meet they plan on bringing the energy and outcomes of in-person meetings to Google Meet.

The aim is to provide  seamless collaboration experience to everyone from enterprises to academic institutions.

MindTickle is the third SaaS firm from India to enter the unicorn club in 2021

A decade-old startup - MindTickle announced a $100 million Series E funding round led by existing investor SoftBank, at a valuation of $1.2 billion, making it the third Indian software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup to become a unicorn in 2021, after Chargebee and BrowserStack. Existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Canaan, NewView Capital, and Qualcomm Ventures also participated in the Series E round.

MindTickle helps small and large enterprises improve their sales also offering solutions for onboarding, micro-learning and skills development and is the latest entrant to India's unicorn club. It has presence in over 115 countries across the world, the SaaS startup has raised over $281 million to date.

A reasonable chunk of money will go into global expansions, getting into more territories and geographies. Some amount will go into R&D which will be used to develop stack. 

STW Technic and Elevāt team up to offer mobile machine IoT solutions for customers

Elevāt, a leading global IoT connected machines SaaS innovator and an award-winning provider of mobile electronics and software for automation, digitalization and electrification of off highway vehicles  and STW Technic announced their collaboration today. 

This new integration proposed between Elevāt's Machine Connect and the STW Technic Reach platform creates a complementary system of complete remote asset management and cloud data monetization for mobile machine OEMs, fleet owners, and dealers alike. 

SocialChorus and Dynamic Signal complete merger deal to offer innovative digital employee experience

Two high-growth SaaS giants in the digital employee experience (DEX) space-  SocialChorus and Dynamic Signal have confirmed the completion of their previously-announced merger in a transaction led by Sumeru Equity Partners is now complete. 

The companies plan on announcing a unified brand later this year which will be led by Gary Nakamura along with a leadership team made up of executives from both SocialChorus and Dynamic Signal. Until then, the combined company will continue to operate under their current brands

HackerU acquires Cybint for $50M

HackerU, a Florida based company which creates cybersecurity and other digital skills programs, is acquiring a SaaS-based cyber education company - Cybint.
The plan going forward is to rebrand as ThriveDX, standing for “digital transformation” ; the acquisition will increase the combined entity’s geographic footprint as HackerU provided digital workforce training to students, post-graduate professionals and the community in the U.S., Europe and Asia through partnerships with universities. The Cybint team will support HackerU by signing additional partnerships and accelerating the development of software as a service (SaaS) training solutions with a strong emphasis on corporate training and cybersecurity education solutions globally

Though both companies declined to comment on the price, TechCrunch sources understand this to be a $50 million acquisition.