Mphasis acquires US-based Blink UX for $94 mn in an all cash deal

Bengaluru-based IT services company Mphasis has acquired US-based design consultancy Blink Interactive Inc for a total consideration of $94 million, including earnouts. In a filing, Mphasis said that the acquisition is expected to provide access to marquee logos, strengthen experience business and will be revenue growth accretive.

The deal was sealed on September 21 after the signing of a definitive agreement between Mphasis Corporation and Blink Interactive Inc.

“The Total Addressable Market for the upstream user research, strategy and design is growing 25-30 per cent p.a. i.e., 4-5x the overall IT Services market. There is significantly increased focus on customer/ user centered design in the current environment. The synergy opportunity set will revolve around product, experience and service design, as well as the end-to-end implementation services across the spectrum of clients and industries we service together,” said Nitin Rakesh, CEO and Executive Director at Mphasis.

Design consultancy Blink Interactive was founded in 2000, and provides services around UX, user research-based software product design and strategy and experience design. It is headquartered in Seattle and has over 130 employees. It has additional studios in Austin, Boston, San Diego, and San Francisco.

Blink CEO Karen Clark Cole said, “Understanding user behaviour through qualitative research is the foundation of our product strategy and experience design work. Knowing what motivates a product’s customers, including their context of use, mental model, needs and opportunities, allows us to design experiences that are intuitive, innovative, useful, and usable.”

Shares of Mphasis rose 2 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 3,267.95 on BSE on Wednesday. The stock opened 0.19 per cent higher at Rs 3,205.15 against the previous close of Rs 3,199.00. With a market capitalisation of Rs 60,871 crore, the shares stand higher than 5 day, 20 day, 50 day, 100 day and 200 day moving averages. BusinessToday