Ericsson landed regulatory approval of its $6.2 billion Vonage buy from the Committee on Foreign Investments in the U.S., said Ericsson Friday. “This represents the final requisite approval to complete the deal,” it said. Ericsson and Vonage now expect the transaction to close no later than Thursday, “as provided for” in their November purchase agreement (see 2111220034), under which Vonage will operate as an Ericsson subsidiary under its existing brand, said Ericsson.

CEDIA Expo owner Emerald Holding bought Bulletin, a wholesale marketplace for clothing, accessories, lifestyle and beauty brands, said Emerald Wednesday. The acquisition will help wholesale buyers discover more brands and makers via a combination of in-person and e-commerce offerings, creating a “24/7 platform for brands and retailers to connect and transact with each other,” it said. Terms weren’t disclosed. Emerald puts on about 140 events annually.

IBM bought Databand.ai, an Israeli supplier of “data observability” software, it said Wednesday. “As the volume of data continues to grow at an unprecedented pace, organizations are struggling to manage the health and quality of their data sets, which is necessary to make better business decisions and gain a competitive advantage,” said IBM. Data observability is “a rapidly growing market opportunity” that helps enterprises “better understand the health of data in their system and automatically identify, troubleshoot and resolve issues,” it said. Terms of the transaction, which closed June 29, weren’t disclosed.

Resideo cited growth in the audio video and smart home markets in announcing its purchase of privately held Electronic Custom Distributors Wednesday. ECD, a four-location operation based in Houston, is a distributor of residential audio, video, automation, security, wire and telecommunication products to contractors in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas (TOLA). It also has a 30,000-square-foot distribution center. Resideo, spun off from Honeywell in 2018, is pursuing “tuck-in acquisitions” to strengthen customer and supplier relationships, said CEO Jay Geldmacher. ECD is its fifth acquisition since 2020. ECD will be part of Resideo’s ADI Global Distribution business, which has a growing assortment of pro AV products for commercial installations, Resideo said. The acquisition also boosts ADI's branch presence in the TOLA region and “expands its private brand offering with exclusive product lines." Terms weren’t disclosed.

Xperi bought European smart TV middleware company Vewd Software for $109 million in a combination of cash and debt, the buyer said Tuesday. Vewd provides over-the-top and hybrid TV solutions that ship in over 30 million connected TV devices annually. The transaction gives Xperi access to an installed European footprint of about 15 million devices that can be enabled for monetization, including activation of TiVo+, its free ad-supported TV service, it said. “The acquisition of Vewd also strengthens the growth outlook of our product business as we prepare to separate our IP and product businesses this fall," said Xperi CEO Jon Kirchner, saying Xperi expects incremental revenue of $10 million in the second half followed by “substantially higher” revenue in 2023. Xperi will add about 275 Vewd team members; the Vewd management team will continue to lead the business and will be integrated into Xperi’s management structure, it said. Over 450 million connected TV devices have shipped with Vewd smart TV software from customers including Amazon, Commscope, Hisense, Nintendo, Sagemcom, Skyworth, Sony, Swisscom, TCL, TPV Philips and Vestel.

Blizzard Entertainment closed its acquisition of Boston-based games studio Proletariat, said the buyer Friday. The Proletariat purchase will help expand the “development pipeline” for the Activision Blizzard division's World of Warcraft franchise, it said. "Over the next two years we plan to hire hundreds of the best developers to serve the needs of our World of Warcraft players,” said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. Terms of the Proletariat transaction weren't disclosed. Microsoft’s $68.7 billion Activision Blizzard buy in an all-cash transaction is expected to close during the fiscal year ending June (see 2201180009).

NielsenIQ and GfK will combine into a single entity offering “new capabilities in the consumer and retail measurement industry,” said the companies Friday. The terms of their definitive merger agreement weren’t disclosed. The transaction is expected to close later this year or early 2023, until which NielsenIQ and GfK will continue to operate as independent companies, they said. Private equity firm Advent International, which bought NielsenIQ last year, will remain majority shareholder in the combined venture, while the nonprofit Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions, GfK’s founder and anchor shareholder, will maintain a “key” ownership stake, they said.

Walmart will buy Memomi, an augmented reality optical tech company, in a move that Walmart said reinforces its “commitment to frictionless and omnichannel optical care.” Memomi is a provider of technology “to enhance virtual optical try-on experiences,” said Walmart Wednesday. It has been providing optical try-on services to Walmart and Sam’s Club stores since 2019 and is the engine that runs the optical e-commerce store at SamsClub.com, it said. The transaction is expected to close in the coming weeks, it said. Terms weren’t disclosed.

The Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period expired Monday on MaxLinear’s proposed $3.8 billion buy of Silicon Motion, a Taiwanese supplier of NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices, said MaxLinear Tuesday. MaxLinear, a producer of analog and mixed-signal chips for broadband, connectivity and infrastructure applications, said it expects the transaction to close by the first half of calendar 2023 (see 2205050037).

CEDIA Expo owner Emerald Holding bought the assets of B2B event owner Advertising Week (AW) from Stillwell Partners, it said Tuesday. AW’s franchise includes AWNewYork (NYC), AWEurope (London), AWAsia (Tokyo), AWLATAM (Mexico City) and AWAPAC (Sydney). In addition to live and virtual events, the year-round global content platform includes e-learning (AWLearn) and original audio, video, and editorial content (AW360), Emerald said. Advertising Week has more than 100,000 annual attendees at its hybrid events, over 3,000 speakers per year, produces more than 1,000 video content hours and generates over 25 billion event public relations impressions, Emerald said. Following the acquisition, all Advertising Week employees will join Emerald, including Chairman Matt Scheckner, CEO Lance Pillersdorf and Global President Ruth Mortimer, who will continue to lead the day-to-day operations of the business, Emerald said. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.