Costa Mesa-based Veritone Inc. is on a buying spree, closing its third deal in the last month.
The latest acquisition is Machine Box Inc., a Northern California-based company that builds machine learning technology for developers to create their own artificial intelligence tools.
Under the cash and stock deal, Veritone will pay $2 million for the company and an additional $3 million earn out if Machine Box meets certain milestones. The San Rafael-based software maker specializes in face and object recognition, text analytics and personalized recommendation applications.
Veritone (Nasdaq: VERI) is trying to crack into the booming artificial intelligence segment with its aiWARE platform, which allows companies to track advertisements and media comments in real time.
It showed some growth in the emerging business, ending the second quarter with 86 customers, up 126%. Revenue in its AI platform unit doubled to $860,000 from the same period a year ago. However, its media buying revenue fell 12% to $3.3 million. Its total revenue of $4.2 million missed analyst consensus.
It posted a net loss of $14.3 million, or 88 cents a share, lowering its loss from a year earlier of $25 million. Analysts had forecast a loss of 85 cents a share.
Veritone last month closed two acquisitions, one for its emerging artificial intelligence business and the other for its media-buying arm.
Veritone’s advertising unit acquired Performance Bridge Media in New York for $6 million; the deal includes an additional $5 million primarily in Veritone stock if the Binghamton, N.Y.-based company meets certain revenue benchmarks.
In the other deal, Veritone said it’s paying $15 million in a split cash and stock deal for Denver-based Wazee Digital, a provider of cloud video management and licensing services. The company posted revenue eclipsing $19 million last year.
Wazee Digital customers include HBO, Bloomberg, Viacom and FremantleMedia.
Veritone, known for its volatile trading sessions on Wall Street, has seen its shares fall 55% this year to about $10.50 and a $207 million market cap. Its shares are down about 29% in the past month.
Toshiba Mexico
Lake Forest-based Toshiba America Business Solutions Inc. and Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions Inc., based in North Carolina, invested more than $2 million to modernize its new 38,000-square-foot products and solutions development center in Jalisco, Mexico.
The Guadalajara operation has grown from 36 employees when operations were established in 2006 to 164 workers. Toshiba Mexico has increased its staff from 48 to 298 in that time.
The vast majority of Toshiba America’s nearly $1 billion in annual revenue is generated from its scanners, printers and copiers sold to small and midsize businesses. It has about 165,000 U.S. and Latin America customers.
Toshiba Global is the market share leader in installed retail point of sale systems and related services, generating more than $2 billion in annual sales. It targets Fortune 500 companies. It employs about 2,300 companywide and has operations in 44 countries.
The Sept. 11 grand opening featured several dignitaries and Toshiba executives, including Scott Maccabe, who serves as president and chief executive of both units.
Both Toshiba units are part of Tokyo-based Toshiba Tec Corp., itself a unit of Japan-based Toshiba Corp.
OC’s iPhone Connections
Several OC tech companies are in line to benefit from the latest iPhone models released last week.
Chipmakers Skyworks Solutions Inc., which runs from Irvine, and Broadcom Inc., which has a sizeable operation in Irvine, tops the list.
Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO) has made communications chips that power Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and other applications in Apple Inc. products for years, while Skywork’s (Nasdaq: SWKS) has long supplied the Cupertino-based company integrated chips for its consumer electronics products.
Industry watchers should get some clarity on design winners in the coming days as tear-down specialists like San Luis Obispo-based ifixit.com uncover the guts inside the iPhone XS and its big brother, iPhone XS Max.
Count OC’s large contingent of case, battery and other accessory makers in that lot as well as they scramble to develop new product lines in the next month or so that fit the larger displays of the new smartphones.
