Tag Archives: acquisition

Trump Media Company Secures $2.5 Billion Investment for Bitcoin Acquisition

Posted on by
Reply

On Tuesday, Donald Trump’s media organization announced that institutional investors are set to acquire $2.5 billion in stock, with plans to build Bitcoin reserves from the generated revenue.

Around 50 institutional investors are expected to put $1.5 billion into a private placement for Trump Media and Technology Group, the firm behind Truth Social, along with a $1 billion conversion of senior notes into common stock, as per the company’s statement.

Trump Media aims to utilize its revenues to establish a “Bitcoin Treasury Department.” This initiative will mirror the president’s actions and develop a “strategic Bitcoin Reserve” for the U.S. government.

Devin Nunes, former Congressman and current CEO and Chairman of Trump Media, stated in a press release: “We view Bitcoin as the pinnacle of financial freedom. Currently, Trump Media holds cryptocurrency as a significant portion of their assets. Nunes added that purchasing a substantial amount of Bitcoin will enhance subscription payments and promote a true social “utility token,” which is a form of cryptocurrency used for app purchases on a designated blockchain.

During his initial term, Trump, who once described cryptocurrency as “not money,” critiquing its value as “based on thin air,” has since shifted his perspective on technology. He was the first major candidate to accept donations in cryptocurrency during his campaign. Since assuming office, he has introduced his own cryptocurrency.

Just last week, Trump compensated 220 individuals involved in another cryptocurrency venture, Trump’s Memecoin, leading to allegations that he has blurred the lines between his responsibilities as president and personal interests during a lavish dinner at a luxury golf club in Northern Virginia.

Skip past newsletter promotions

At an event hosted at his Mar-A-Lago club in Florida during the May 2024 presidential election, Trump received confirmation that supporters from the cryptocurrency sector would significantly fund his re-election. He plans to address major Bitcoin events throughout the campaign, with Vice President JD Vance scheduled to speak at a gathering this week.

Source: www.theguardian.com

DoorDash Proposes Acquisition of UK Rival Deliveroo for $3.6 Billion

Posted on by
Reply

Doordash has proposed acquiring UK rival Deliveroo for $3.6 billion (£2.7 billion), as announced by Deliveroo on Friday.

In a statement to the Guardian, Deliveroo mentioned that its board is discussing the offer with Doordash, but no formal proposal has yet been made. They noted that if shares are valued at £1.80 ($2.40), it may be a challenge to recommend such an offer to shareholders.

“We cannot confirm that Doordash’s offer to Deliveroo will materialize. At this point, shareholders are advised to refrain from taking any action concerning potential offers,” stated the company.

The proposal from Doordash is valid until May 23rd. Reuters.

Doordash is currently the leading food delivery app in the United States, boasting 42 million active users monthly in 2024 and generating $10.7 billion in revenue that same year. Founded in 2012 in San Francisco, it operates in over 25 countries.

In 2021, Doordash acquired the Finnish delivery service Wolt for 7 billion euros, equivalent to approximately $8.1 billion at the time.

Deliveroo, based in London and founded in 2013, ranks as the second largest food delivery app in the UK. In 2024, it reported an average of 7.1 million active users and earnings of £2.07 billion, as mentioned in a statement.

Both companies have expanded into grocery delivery in recent years and are exploring ways to grow their user base beyond food delivery.

In a February interview with Fortune, Doordash CEO Tony Xu described the company’s presence as feeling like a “spot of dust.”

Skip past newsletter promotions

“We are actively addressing challenges related to first-party delivery and first-party ordering,” Xu stated. “To establish yourself as a digital powerhouse, you must go beyond these fundamentals.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Elon Musk’s Acquisition Causes X’s UK Interests to Collapse the Following Year

Posted on by
Reply

The company acknowledges that X’s revenue and profits plummeted in the UK when Elon Musk took over the social media platform.

A decrease in ad spending due to concerns about “brand safety and/or content moderation” was cited as a key reason, according to recent accounts submitted.

Twitter UK Ltd also faced significant scrutiny for missing its account filing deadline last month, as noted in recent company filings. It finally filed its complete account in 2023, the year it was rebranded as X after Musk’s acquisition.

“The company continues to develop brand safety tools, invest in platform safety and content moderation, and implement corrective measures to educate advertisers on these initiatives,” stated the company.

Overall revenue amounted to £69.1 million, down 66.3% year-on-year from £205.3 million in 2022. Profit for 2023 dropped to £1.2 million from £5.6 million the previous year, with pre-tax profit decreasing by 74% to £2.25 million. This was described as a “significant decline in the company’s performance.”

The acquisition of masks also led to layoffs, with Musk revealing that only 1,500 of the approximately 8,000 Twitter employees were retained that year.

In the UK, the number of employees at the company decreased from 399 in the previous year to 114, including 173 cuts in the “research and development” sector.

Despite these challenges, X’s value was recently estimated at $44 billion by Musk, and his X.AI artificial intelligence company acquired the business for $33 billion last month.

Farhad Divecha, CEO of Accuracast and founder of unyte.ai, an expert in digital advertising, expressed that the revealed numbers did not come as a surprise.

“The warning signs were evident all along,” he remarked. “If anything, there may now be an opportunity for X to recuperate advertiser revenues, particularly if Musk and his team collaborate to support advertisers and implement brand safety protocols, initially focusing on the UK and Europe.”

Skip past newsletter promotions

X was contacted for comments, with KinFaiCheung listed as the director who approved the accounts. Cheung and Adeeb Sahar are listed as company directors, while Musk is identified as having a “key management” role at Company House.

Musk established a new company in the UK late last year amid speculation that he intends to make a substantial donation to Nigel Farage’s Reform British Party.

The new company, X.ai London, was founded on December 12th and is involved in “business and domestic software development,” operating from the same London office as X.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Elon Musk’s X company sees a resurgence in value with $44 billion acquisition.

Posted on by
Reply

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has reportedly surged to the $44 billion valuation he paid for it, marking a significant turnaround in his fortunes as the billionaire shifted from being a key ally of Donald Trump.

Investors recently assessed the platform, previously valued at $440 billion (£33.9 billion) on Twitter, through a secondary transaction, as reported by the Financial Times.

X is currently in the process of raising $2 billion from Fresh Capital in a major funding round by issuing new stocks to pay off debts exceeding $1 billion, which were evaluated at just $10 billion by existing investor Fidelity Investments in late September.

Musk, the world’s richest individual, took control of what was then Twitter in October 2022 and later rebranded it as X, tweeting “The Bird Is Free” in reference to the company’s logo. Subsequently, he made changes to the site’s moderation policy, resulting in some advertisers pausing or leaving.

Following a profanity-laden outburst at the New York Times Dealbook Summit in November 2023, Musk accused advertisers of attempting to “blackmail” him through boycotts, prompting legal action against the global advertising alliance and major companies like Unilever, Mars, and CVS Health for allegedly conspiring to avoid social networks.

The $44 billion valuation reflects a major shift for X and its investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, 8VC, Goanna Capital, and Fidelity Investments. The $2 billion primary fund raise was priced through the secondary agreement.

Since Musk’s acquisition, X’s revenue has declined, but it managed to record an adjusted profit of $1.2 billion last year. Additionally, Musk’s stake in SpaceX now surpasses his Tesla holdings as his most valuable asset, according to Forbes.

Forbes estimates Musk’s net worth at $323 billion, with his SpaceX shares valued at approximately $147 billion—about $2 billion more than his Tesla shares following a decrease in the automaker’s stock price.

Skip past newsletter promotions

Source: www.theguardian.com

Wizz, a cybersecurity company, turns down $23 billion acquisition bid from Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company

Posted on by
Reply

Cybersecurity company Wizz has turned down a $23bn (£18bn) takeover offer from Google’s parent Alphabet, making it the largest takeover bid ever for a tech company, and has opted for a stock market listing instead.

Alphabet had been in discussions with Wizz, a company established by graduates of Israel’s cyber-intelligence program, in an effort to catch up with competitors Microsoft and Amazon in the competitive cloud-services market.

Wiz provides a service that scans data on cloud storage platforms like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure for potential security threats.

The New York-based startup, which is financially backed by investors such as Sequoia Capital and Thrive Capital, was last valued at $12 billion.

In an internal email to employees, the company expressed gratitude for the offer but decided to remain committed to its mission of building Wiz. CEO Assaf Rapaport outlined the company’s objectives of reaching $1 billion in annual recurring revenue and going public.

Despite the tempting offer, the company’s trust in its skilled team reaffirmed their decision. The positive response from the market further reinforced their aim to create a platform that is loved by both security and development teams.

As of Tuesday morning, neither Wizz nor Google have released an official statement regarding the end of the acquisition negotiations.

There are concerns that the deal may face regulatory challenges as authorities seek to tighten their control over acquisitions involving major tech companies.

Last month, the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission agreed to investigate leading players in the AI market, including Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia.

Established in 2020, Wizz was valued at $12 billion in a funding round in May, attracting investments from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Thrive.

Wiz claims to have 40% of the Fortune 100 as clients and boasts an annual recurring revenue of $350 million.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision and Focus on AI Drive Robust Quarterly Earnings

Posted on by
Reply

Microsoft on Tuesday beat analysts’ expectations as its big bet on artificial intelligence paid off, particularly in its Azure cloud computing unit.


The software giant reported revenue of $62 billion, up 18% from a year ago, beating expected profits of $61.1 billion. The Net income increased 33% year over year to $21.9 billion.

CEO Satya Nadella said: “We have moved from talking about AI to applying AI at scale. By bringing AI to every layer of our technology stack, we are gaining new customers and unlocking new benefits in all areas. and boost productivity.”

Microsoft Cloud revenue grew 24% year over year. According to the earnings report, Xbox Content and Services segment revenue increased 61% due to the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Activision increased the company’s overall revenue by 4%.

Microsoft, which recently overtook Apple to become the world’s most valuable company, last week became the second company in history to have a stock market valuation of $3 trillion.

Microsoft is considered a leading player in the AI ​​space, both through its own efforts and its close relationship with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, of which it is the largest shareholder. In November, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella played a key role in Sam Altman’s return as CEO of OpenAI after Altman’s shocking firing. Microsoft occupies an observer seat on his OpenAI board.

Jeremy Goldman, Senior Director of Insider Intelligence/eMarketer Briefing, said: “The company’s recent financial performance, which showed an impressive 18% revenue growth in today’s earnings call, is driven by innovation and strategy. “It shows a powerful combination of foresight.” “While peers such as Alphabet and Meta lead the way in his AI industry, Microsoft is solidifying its position as the frontrunner in his AI race.”

Microsoft’s influence over AI development is rapidly expanding, drawing increased scrutiny from regulators and those outside the technology industry. Investors brushed off concerns that the stock would face stronger headwinds as the stock rose 10% over the past month.

The Federal Trade Commission announced last week that it had opened an investigation into the company’s $10 billion investment in OpenAI, as well as its dealings with Google, Amazon, and AI startup Anthropic. Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority is also investigating the deal. European Union regulators said they may launch a similar investigation. The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in early December, alleging copyright infringement by ChatGPT.

The quarter also marked the first time Microsoft reported revenue with Activision Blizzard, the premier game studio behind hits like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Microsoft completed its $69 billion acquisition of the video game maker in October after lengthy back-and-forth with regulators.

Citing job cuts within both companies, Microsoft last week laid off 1,900 employees across its gaming division, including Activision employees and those working on Xbox consoles.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Snowflake makes a big move into data clean rooms with acquisition of Samooha

Posted on by
Reply

snowflake is buying Samuhaa startup developing a “cross-cloud” data collaboration suite; company announced This morning it was added to the list of big tech acquisitions for the holiday season.

The transaction, which is expected to close by the end of this month and is subject to customary closing conditions, will enable Snowflake to securely share, collaborate on, and gain insights from their own and partners’ data, a well-established data clean technology. Acquire the “Room” platform. Regardless of the underlying data stack.

Samooha, in turn, will receive an undisclosed amount of cash and/or stock, along with support for Snowflake’s extensive technology and engineering infrastructure. All 19 Samooha employees, including CEO Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan and co-founder Abhishek Bhowmik, will be joining Snowflake in some capacity.

“This acquisition further strengthens our mission to leverage the world’s data by accelerating the built-in capabilities of the Snowflake platform for our customers,” Carl Perry, director of product management at Snowflake, said in an email. told TechCrunch. “Samooha customers will benefit from Snowflake’s many built-in platform features and the powerful network of the Snowflake Data Cloud. Meanwhile, Snowflake customers will be able to use the data clean room where their data already resides within Snowflake. It’s now faster and easier to build, connect, and use directly with .

Los Altos-based Samuha, co-founded by Sivaramakrishnan and Bhowmik in 2022, competes in the increasingly crowded data cleanroom space. AWS has a data clean room product, and so do startups like Herb. However, Samooha differentiates itself by relying heavily on his Snowflake ecosystem. Naturally, Snowflake was an early investor.

Samooha, a Snowflake native app, provides a no-code UI that customers can use to access and build clean room apps.The company went The company specifically targets industries considered to be potentially underserved, including healthcare, financial services, advertising, retail, and entertainment, and its customer base includes several Fortune 500 brands. He claimed that

Buoyed by its customer acquisition momentum, Samooha raised $12.5 million from investors including Altimeter Capital prior to the acquisition. The startup was valued at about $40 million post-money.

“SaMooha’s founding hypothesis was that the latest frontiers in data and AI would be built on a foundation of secure data sharing and collaboration,” Sivaramakrishnan said in an emailed statement. “Samooha joining Snowflake strengthens Snowflake’s ability to enable enterprises to collaborate in a seamless manner, with data governance, privacy, and security at its core. Companies and businesses such as media platforms can now build a powerful edge of value exchange and connectivity across their ecosystems of partners and customers.”

Investing in data clean room technology could be a beneficial decision for Snowflake. Continue to exceed Investor expectations, as a side note, in the long term. according to According to Gartner, 80% of advertisers spending more than $1 billion annually on media will use data clean rooms by the end of the year for applications such as analytics, measuring campaign results, and facilitating data integration. Probably.another poll published In early 2023, 29% of U.S. marketers suggested they would place more emphasis on data clean rooms this year compared to 2022, but given Snowflake’s interest, this prediction is certainly not impossible. there is no.

Source: techcrunch.com

ServiceNow to further explore task mining through recent acquisition

Posted on by
Reply

ServiceNow announced this morning It is said that it is acquiring a Czech task mining company. Ultimate Suite This gives companies new ways to see and understand the flow of work in their business. The companies haven’t disclosed the price, but the three-year-old startup has raised 768,000 euros (about $839,000), so it’s probably not that big of a deal.

Task mining is part of process mining, a growing global market that helps companies understand the flow of work within an organization, look for bottlenecks, and increase efficiency. please consider that selonis, one of the leading startups in this space, has raised $2.4 billion and is valued at $13 billion as of October 2022. Ultimate Suite is substantially smaller, having raised less than $1 million, but it provides another tool to ServiceNow’s task mining arsenal, says Eduardo, ServiceNow’s vice president and general manager of process mining. His manager is Mr. Chiocconi.

Before acquiring Ultimate Suite, the company had the ability to drill down into workflows, but not down to the user task level. “And when we investigated and discovered where certain inefficiencies were, we lacked the ability to inspect or understand what individual users were doing. , that’s exactly what Ultimate Suite Task Mining is here to help us with,” Chiocconi told his TechCrunch.

He says the goal is actually to build more efficient business processes, and the addition of Ultimate Suite gives them more capabilities to do that. “Insights without action are of little value, so once we find out exactly what needs to be fixed, we also have the ability to automate some of the inefficiencies for end-to-end efficiency.” The idea is to offer it on the same platform. Finish the business process.”

The plan is to integrate Ultimate Suite’s functionality with ServiceNow’s process mining capabilities. “If you look at how ServiceNow has made acquisitions in the past, we pride ourselves on organically building these capabilities into our integrated platform,” Chiocconi said. This means that it will no longer be sold as a separate product. “Our overall objective is to re-platform all of this IP and create more value for our customers by learning how it can be derived from Ultimate Suite and surface as an organic extension of process mining. to bring about.”

This is ServiceNow’s third acquisition related to AI and automation in the past few years. Get AI-powered workflow tools G2K in May This year, and at the end of 2020, Canadian startup Element AI joined us.

Source: techcrunch.com

European Regulatory Challenges Lead to Cancelation of $20 Billion Adobe and Figma Acquisition Plan

Posted on by
Reply

Adobe finally makes a huge $20 billion bid to acquire rival Figma officially deadThis comes after the companies announced today that their acquisition plans had been scrapped due to regulatory pushback in Europe.

The deal, first announced last September, has always attracted regulatory scrutiny due to its size and the fact that it removed one of Adobe’s major rivals from the shadows. Ta. The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) Take a closer look at the transaction For the most part in 2023, news has not yet been filed to prevent the deal from happening. Appeared Before the weekend, Adobe and Figma had met with the Department of Justice in a last-ditch effort to avoid legal action.

Regardless, both companies were already facing significant headwinds in Europe. In late November, the UK announced that the proposed acquisitionharm innovation”, following similar findings in the European Union (EU), which announced a similar course of action in August.

The core of the concern is that Figma is the “clear market leader” in interactive product design tools and acts as a “constraining influence” on Adobe in the digital asset creation tools space. was. Therefore, if Adobe acquires Figma, Figma is a “valid competitor.”

in Today’s blog postFigma CEO and co-founder Dylan Field said the “co-decision” was reached because the two companies were unable to convince regulators of the differences between their products and businesses.

“This is not the outcome we were hoping for, despite spending thousands of hours with regulators around the world detailing the differences between our business, our products, and the markets we serve. We no longer see a path forward for regulatory approval of this transaction,” Field said.

This is a developing story.Please update the latest information.

Source: techcrunch.com

IBM’s $2.3 billion acquisition of StreamSets and WebMethods from Software AG

Posted on by
Reply

IBM is distributing two data integration assets from Germany-based enterprise software company Software AG for 2.13 billion euros ($2.3 billion).

The all-cash transaction will see IBM take ownership. stream set Data integration platform acquired by Software AG just last year and WebMethods, acquired by Software AG for more than $500 million back in 2007.

It’s worth noting that Software AG itself was acquired by Silver Lake earlier this year, obtaining majority ownership of 63% before raising the investment amount to $2.4 billion, 85% or more during September. Silver Lake today just bought it. It owns 93% of Software AG, which will soon be delisted from the public market.

integrated

For IBM, the purchase of Software AG’s Integration Platform-as-a-Service (IPAAS) toolset fits into a broader commitment to hybrid cloud that the company has strengthened over the years with a series of major acquisitions. Includes the company’s $34 acquisition in 2018 of Red Hat for $1 billion and most recently its $4.6 billion acquisition of Apptio in June.

Although cloud computing offers many benefits to enterprises, vendor lock-in and aversion to a single cloud environment are increasing, leading to a more hybrid approach, one that relies on local on-premises infrastructure for security and low-latency purposes. A potentially dependent approach is required. Leverage one or more public cloud providers for specific resources as needed.

However, this means you need to manage and process data that may be stored in a variety of applications, both on-premises and across multiple private or public clouds. And this is where data integration systems come in, allowing companies to build pipelines that can pool data regardless of its location or format.

And this is effectively what IBM is buying with StreamSets and WebMethods: technology that spans the various layers that make up application and data integration, including API management, which WebMethods specifically provides.

Data is also the foundation of AI, and like almost every business today, IBM has been upping its AI game lately. In fact, this year the company introduced a new data science platform called Watsonx. It provides tools to build and deploy AI and manage all your data sources in one platform. And this is where IBM’s two acquisitions will come into play.

“Together with IBM’s Watsonx AI and data platform and its application modernization, data fabric, and IT automation products, StreamSets and webMethods help clients realize the full potential of their applications and data.” IBM said. Rob Thomas, Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of Software, said in a press release.

Source: techcrunch.com