Lycos Internet to buy Austria’s TriTelA Gmbh’ messenger and tech platforms

Lycos Internet Ltd, a digital marketing company, today struck a deal to buy  Austria's TriTelA Gmbh, the owner of MYSMS messenger and tech platforms SPH Wien and Kika Social, in an all-stock transaction.

Under the terms of the deal that has been approved by the boards of both companies, Lycos will issue 2.848 crore additional shares in return for the 100 per cent ownership of the company.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals.

TriTeIA GmbH owns multiple solutions in the mobile ecosystem. Its solutions include content management and analytics platform for video and unified platform for social media listening, engaging and measurement. 

Under the brand name 'MySMS', TriTeIA provides a cross-platform messenger that synchronizes SMSes and instant messages between a wide range of mobile, web and desktop platforms – all through a single cloud-based account. This product has 3 million downloads across various app stores.

SPH Wien is a content management and analytics platform for video.Kika Social is a unified platform for social media listening, engaging and measurement.

The proposed acquisition brings in cloud-based framework to Lycos that can tie multiple nodes like SMSes, instant messages, wearables, cars and appliances with the consumer through multiple devices smart phones, Tablets, laptops and OTTs.

Massachusetts-based Lycos, is a search engine and web portal founded in 1994, spun out of Carnegie Mellon University.

It was acquired in 2010 for $36 million by Ybrant Digital, a Bombay Stock Exchange-listed company founded in 1999 by Suresh Reddy and Vijay Kancharla.
Lycos operates as a division of Ybrant Digital.

Lycos, whose clients include Airtel, British Airways, Coca-Cola, Hyundai Motors, ICICI Bank, lTC, lNG, Lenovo, LlC, Maruti Suzuki, MTV, P&G, Qatar Airways, Samsung, and Viacom, is one of the original and most widely known Internet brands in the world, evolving from pioneering search on the web, into a family of three business units covering digital media, marketing, and Internet of Things (IoT).

The company employs around 450 people across the US, Israel, India, Western Europe, Australia and Latin America.