M&A can open up the playing field for the competition
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Despite it being summer, this week was rich with announcements. Let’s dive in.
Most interesting startup stories from the week
No two businesses are the same, and that’s good news: As we saw again this week, it opens up space for companies to try opposite approaches, join forces or challenge leaders.
Focus or not: In one of India’s recent largest tech M&As, food delivery heavyweight Zomato disbursed $244.1 million to acquire the entertainment ticketing business of Paytm, which has been refocusing on its fintech core. In contrast, Zomato is diversifying in an effort to become a one-stop destination for dining and entertainment options.
Firefighting: FireHydrant, a startup that helps site reliability engineers find, resolve and prevent issues, acquired competitor Blameless as a stepping stone toward end-to-end incident management. FireHydrant did not share the purchase price, but it indicated that it also got an undisclosed amount of additional funding at the time of the acquisition.
Busy schedule: Dropbox has acquired AI-powered scheduling tool Reclaim.ai. Founded in 2019, the startup plans to continue developing its product following the acquisition. In a video, Reclaim.ai’s founders said the whole team of 22 people is joining Dropbox; financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Most interesting fundraises this week
Large funding rounds this week weren’t just about AI; there was some open source, blockchain, construction tech and defense tech mixed in, too.
Up arrows: Grafana Labs, whose dashboards help enterprises visualize and analyze data from their infrastructure services, is now valued at over $6 billion following what the open source company described as an extension to its 2022 Series D round. The new funding comes from a primary and secondary transaction led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and worth $270 million, with proceeds going to the open source company and some of its stockholders.
IP vs. AI: PIP Labs, the parent company behind startup Story, raised an $80 million Series B round from a16z’s crypto division and others to build an ‘IP blockchain’ that will help content owners track and monetize IP in the age of AI.
Military ops: Virginia-based startup Defcon AI has raised a $44 million seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners to help the U.S. Department of Defense optimize logistics. Having earned around $15 million in government contracts so far, the company is in the process of certifying its software to handle classified, secret information.
Most interesting VC and fund news this week
Planetary health: According to an SEC filing, life sciences investor BEVC is raising a $25 million fund aimed at climate-related startups. This would mean following in the footsteps of RA Capital and Flagship Pioneering, which similarly broadened their remit beyond human health.
Last but not least
Reference: https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/23/ma-can-open-up-the-playing-field-for-the-competition/
Ref: techcrunch
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