Microsoft Buys Mover, Its First Known Acquisition Of Q4

Microsoft added another member to its 2019 acquisition list today, announcing that it has purchased Mover, a Canadian startup focused on bringing data to the cloud.

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According to Crunchbase data, Mover, founded in 2012 and headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, raised a little over $1 million in known capital. Only two of the company’s rounds have known dollar amounts, however, a 2011 Seed round for $40,000, and a $1 million Seed round from 2013.

Mover raised from Medra Capital and Double M Partners during its life as a private company, meaning that the Canada-based company raised from investors based in LA and Europe.

The deal isn’t hard to understand. Microsoft’s cloud efforts are an increasingly key component of the company’s revenue mix. Driving adoption of those products, like Office 365, requires helping potential customers get their existing data onto the cloud. Mover, unsurprisingly, helped with those sorts of moves. By acquiring the company, Microsoft will presumably bolster its ability to bring new customers online.

Zooming out, the deal is Microsoft’s first known acquisition of Q4 2019. Updating a chart we’ve published before, here is Microsoft’s acquisition results since Q1 2018, according to Crunchbase data:

The Microsoft-Mover deal isn’t as big as the larger company’s GitHub buy, for example. But the acquisition highlights an absence; Microsoft is one of the world’s most valuable companies, and it isn’t making many public purchases.

Perhaps Redmond also feels that current startup prices are high. Whatever the reason, Microsoft could easily end 2019 with fewer than 10 announced acquisitions. For startups that won’t make it to a public offering, seeing such thin M&A from a corporation able to fend off competition with cash is not a bullish result.

The Microsoft-Mover buy is Microsoft’s 8th known deal of 2019, following its purchases of Movere, jClarity, PromoteIQ, BlueTalon, Express Logic, DataSense, and Citus Data.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.