Gurgaon based digital media company ValueFirst, which focuses on B2B solutions has acquired Octane, a digital marketing firm for an undisclosed amount. Post-acquisition, ValueFirst will continue to run Delhi based Octane as a separate entity while the former will utilize its sales structure and processes to better Octane’s expertise. Additionally, Octane’s business capacity will also be integrated into ‘Infinito’, ValueFirst’s enterprise communication platform. Octane provides email marketing services, as well as SMS & web marketing solutions to enterprises. On the other hand, Value First specializes in online advertising, enterprise communications, online publishing, social media marketing, and analytics. The company also runs its own advertising network called VCLIX, which provides advertisers real-time data about trends, comparisons, alerts and more on a single dashboard. With the acquisition of Octane, the company seems to be targeting the enterprise advertising segment moving away from mobile. Note that this is ValueFirst’s fourth acquisition since inception. In 2013, it had acquired mobile video advertising service clk2c.com. The clk2c.com platform allow brands to push audio/video commercials to the mobile handset of the target audience. At that time, ValueFirst also owned an SMS based ad service called SpotOn Media. ValueFirst had also acquired mGinger, a mobile advertising agency, in June 2012. In the same year, it acquired acquired a majority stake in online social networking site Indyarocks.com. Apart from this, In 2013, ValueFirst’s acquisition of popular SMS messaging platform Way2SMS was dropped after an FIR was lodged by ValueFirst against its former CEO Kumar Apurva, alleging a fraud of Rs 7 crore in the Way2SMS acquisition. Competition…
