Sociomantic, Lieferando, ReadMill and big acquisition rumours

Rumours can be fun – especially if they involve a lot of cash for European startups. In the last two weeks alone, there were three interesting rumours about some upcoming acquisitions in Berlin.

The first one was about Sociomantic. The successfully bootstrapped company, which operates in the field of programmatic advertising, was rumoured to be acquired soon by Dunnhumby – a data and customer insights company owned by Tesco. Business Insider was the first publication reporting about the rumour and estimated the deal size to be between $175 million to $200 million. Wow!

The 2nd roumour was about Takeaway.com acquiring the Berlin-based food delivery startup Lieferando. Sources of Deutsche-Startups.de stated that the paid sum was more than €50 million. Both companies didn’t confirm or deny this acquisition yet.

The 3rd and most recent acquisition rumour is about ReadMill. The social and shareable reading platform might be sold to Dropbox soon. TechCrunch today reported, that the deal value could be around $8 million (paid mostly in stock). An acqui-hire, an acquisition or a rumour. We’ll soon know it.