It’s been a week of major acquisitions in NYC tech. Put simply: Live video streaming service Livestream was taken over by Vimeo days after meal subscription service Plated was acquired by national grocery store chain Albertsons for an estimated $200 million — and both acquisitions are making waves in their respective industries.
In Plated’s case, the acquisition coincidentally happened not long after Amazon nearly broke the internet with its acquisition of Whole Foods. Fortune noted that this move could be Albertsons’ way of staying competitive with the e-commerce giant. With Albertsons’ 2,300 locations across the country, the acquisition helps get the artist formerly known as Plated in front of a lot more people — we’re talking about an audience of 35 million grocery shoppers. Albertsons plans to offer the meal kits in stores and on its websites and apps.
The Livestream acquisition is also noteworthy. As TechCrunch explained, it’s Vimeo’s largest acquisition to date, though terms of the deal were not disclosed. Vimeo is the video streaming service that lets users manage and host high-quality videos in one spot. The company was going to launch a subscription-based, video-on-demand business earlier this year, but halted those plans and took over Brooklyn-based Livestream instead. This move allows the video streaming service to unveil a new offering, Vimeo Live, which can be purchased as a monthly membership. As the name suggests, the feature lets video creators broadcast live events in HD — so, for example, superfans can watch their favorite bands perform in real-time without ever leaving their home.
“Ultimately, Vimeo is a creator-first platform and live video is what our creators are asking for,” Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud told TechCrunch. “This was the number one request from our community, and it is critically important for us to deliver on what our community needs while also ensuring that what we produce is founded in quality and reliability, which is why we’re so proud of Vimeo Live and this acquisition.”
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