IoT provider KORE has acquired Business Mobility Partners, a T-Mobile airtime reseller in the US with a focus on the digital healthcare market. It has also acquired fellow New York-based firm SIMON IoT, based out of the same Westbury address as Business Mobility Partners, and with the same company president.
There is no confirmation in the press release about the twin acquisitions or on the companies’ websites that Business Mobility Partners is the parent company of SIMON IoT, nor that the twin acquisitions are part of the same deal, but that appears to be the case; the pair are repeatedly stylised as Business Mobility Partners & SIMON IoT.
Atlanta-based KORE – which appears to have dropped (and capped) the Kore Wireless moniker since floating on the New York Stock Exchange late last year, following its combination with Cerberus Telecom Acquisition Corp – said the pair will operate as standalone entities, also cross-selling KORE’s existing solutions into the healthcare sector. The acquisitions also deliver a “rich channel program with leading wireless carriers,” said KORE.
KORE expects to see the market grow from about 12 billion IoT devices at the end of 2020 to 75 billion by 2030. Its emergence as a publicly listed company will reduce its debt, it said at the time, and also open up potential acquisitions to grow faster. The new deals will help it expand in the healthcare and life sciences industries.
In particular, Business Mobility Partners, founded in 2016, serves the clinical trial market, which is “rapidly transitioning to decentralized clinical trials (DCT) and adopting connected devices for electronic data capture (EDC) with digital biomarker sensors”. The firm has seen growth by delivering IoT services to contract research organizations (CROs) and remote patient monitoring (RPM) customers.
A statement said: “The company was created to deliver a world-class experience to healthcare customers, while building one of the strongest distribution channels in the wireless industry.” Not much is said of SIMON IoT, except that the company provides “agile, low-touch business services across industries’, and its acquisition will “accelerate [its] digital customer acquisition strategy”.
Romil Bahl, president and chief executive at KORE, said: “Business Mobility Partners and SIMON IoT fit with the capabilities underpinning our growth strategy and will enable us to rapidly broaden our services in the evolving life sciences space. IoT is increasingly critical to the execution of clinical trials, as they move to a more digital platform. While KORE has a presence in the life sciences industry, this tuck-in acquisition helps to extend our portfolio even further in this segment and serves as a true double-down bet in our largest industry sector, connected health.”
Jared Deith, president of both firms, has been awarded 150,000 restricted stock units as part of the takeover, and appointed as senior vice president for connected health at KORE; others have also received stock “inducements”
Deith said: “The combination of Business Mobility Partners and SIMON IoT with KORE was a logical next step in the expansion of services we can offer our customers. KORE’s global scale, coverage, and strategic vision allow us to continue to rapidly grow and take our expertise to new levels for our customers. The ability to take our momentum and fuel it with the scale and systems of KORE is something that will benefit all of our partners and customers.”
