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2018 has been a busy year for acquisitions of Austin startups.

As the year starts drawing to a close, we decided to take a look at the largest known startup acquisitions the city has seen this year. In addition, there were a number of significant deals where the sales price was not disclosed. So while we鈥檒l mention them later in the piece, they鈥檙e not included in the leading group.

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Austin has been a regular topic here at Crunchbase News, especially its venture inputs. Turning our sights to M&A outputs is, therefore, all the more important.

鈥淚 think 2018, in general, has been a great year for fundraising, exits, and IPOs in the Austin area,鈥� said . 鈥淲hen it comes to exits, it鈥檚 notable that in many cases when an acquisition is made, the acquiring company keeps the teams here. That says a lot about the culture here. It鈥檚 something that not only companies are noticing, but they don鈥檛 want to disrupt.鈥�

Let鈥檚 start with the big, priced deals, and then take a look at other transactions that you should know about if you want to understand Austin.

In early January, private equity firm 聽took a $250 million majority stake in WordPress host . Now this was an interesting deal because all the PR surrounding it framed the transaction as a private equity investment. But those in the know indicate that it was a buyout disguised as an 鈥榠nvestment.鈥� 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what they [Silver Lake] do,鈥� one source said.

Sources also told me that the Austin VC firm 聽cashed out entirely as part of the transaction. Prior to the deal, WP Engine had raised $40.7 million from investors such as Silverton and North Bridge Growth Equity. In March, the eight-year-old company told me that it had recently achieved more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue and that it had more than 75,000 customers globally.

Majority-stake private equity investment, or majority-stage private equity buyout, the deal was big and helped show that Austin-based companies can not only grow large and sell big, but that they can hit nine-figure revenue while doing both.

In August 2018, online real estate platform announced it was purchasing Austin-based , in what LiveOak鈥檚 Rathe described as 鈥渙ne of the quickest success stories Austin has seen.鈥�

鈥淕oing from our seed investment to a strong exit in less than 24 months is another example of how strategic acquirers are targeting Austin,鈥� he told Crunchbase News.

Opcity was founded in late 2015 and had raised $27 million in in May 2017 before it sold. The company, which connects real estate agents and mortgage loan officers to pre-screened, live leads, had been partners with Move 鈥渟ince day one鈥� prior to the acquisition taking place, explains Founder and CEO .

鈥淲e鈥檇 been lightly talking about an acquisition for a while but those discussions got more serious over the summer,鈥� Rubenstein told Crunchbase News. 鈥淚t really was a logical fit. Their business has been focused on helping consumers with search and discovery and our business is around the conversion process, and helping them get all the way to close. So, it really made sense for both companies, and will allow us to scale much faster.鈥�

The acquisition closed on Oct. 11, and Rubenstein will remain CEO of Opcity, reporting to the CEO of Move. Currently, the company has over 400 employees. By this time next year, Rubenstein projects his employee count to number 鈥渄eep into the 600s.鈥�

He emphasizes the company had not operated with this sort of exit necessarily in mind. 鈥淚 think if you build a company to get acquired,鈥� Rubenstein told Crunchbase News, 鈥測ou鈥檙e not going to build a healthy, sustainable organization.鈥�

Also in January, internet domain giant announced it was buying , a social media marketing platform, for $125 million in cash plus up to $50 million in potential earnouts. Founded in 2010, Main Street Hub had raised prior to being acquired from investors such as and . The deal closed in July.

Other Deals Of Unknown Size

As mentioned above, a number of significant deals took place in Austin during 2018 in which the dollar amount was undisclosed. We felt we would be remiss not to include them here.

• In February, grocery store giant purchased , an on-demand delivery service. The company first launched in 2013, building a product that focused on the Texas market. It stood out among its competitors due to profitability, and cash flow positivity last year. Favor several potential suitors but believed the H-E-B union made sense. In September, Favor CEO was quoted as saying that since the acquisition, Favor had added 20,000 more delivery people and expanded into 84 cities, up from 50 cities. He said it also planned to be in 114 cities by year鈥檚 end. Favor had previously raised $34 million over time from investors such as , and .

• , which makes software for managing social media, was by San Francisco-based via its parent, , for an undisclosed amount. Since its inception, Spredfast had raised from investors such as and , 聽according to its Crunchbase profile.

• On Nov. 20, announced the of Austin-based , a free online shopping price and coupon tracker. Capital One SVP said in a statement that with the purchase, Capital One had “acquired an innovative startup that helps customers save time, money, and enables them to shop with confidence.鈥� Over the last three years, Wikibuy grew to two million members who鈥檝e saved more than $50 million this year, according to a company . As in the case of most of the acquisitions that take place here, Wikibuy will remain in Austin.

• And on Nov. 14, our own EiC Alex Wilhelm reported on how software giant picked up Austin-based dev shop for an undisclosed amount. Although XOXCO during its life as a private company, the deal was notable as it fit into general acceleration of Microsoft鈥檚 M&A work.

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