Atlassian Acquires Loom for $975 Million
Australian software giant Atlassian, operators of products like Jira and Hipchat, announced this week its acquisition of screen recording service Loom. The deal, reportedly valued at $975 million, was markedly less than Loom’s last private valuation in excess of $1.5 billion, but nonetheless constitutes a successful exit for its founders and early investors.
Israeli Tech Firms Hit Hard By Hamas Terror
Companies across this start-up hub of the Middle East, where tech contributes more than 20% of GDP, are just starting to grapple with the effect of unprecedented terror attacks. While some Israeli companies have seen half of their teams called up for military reserve duty, others have pivoted their operations to support fundraising and logistics for the families of victims of terrorism.
Microsoft’s Purchase of Activision Approved by UK Regulators
Microsoft’s acquisition of video games publisher Activision, makers of games ranging from Candy Crush to World of Warcraft, is all but certain since regulators in the United Kingdom cleared the deal from anti-competition concerns. The deal was allowed to go through after Microsoft agreed to sell Activision’s streaming games business to Canadian publisher Ubisoft.
Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison Testifies Against SBF
The fraud trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried continued this week with more prosecution witnesses claiming SBF purposefully and repeatedly instructed them to commit financial crimes. The most compelling testimony of the week came from SBF’s former girlfriend Caroline Ellison who served as CEO of Alameda Research, the hedge fund through which SBF allegedly made illegal purchases and political contributions with FTX customer money. Ellison detailed how she was ordered by SBF to use FTX customer funds to cover bad Alameda investments, and how SBF invented new cryptocurrencies with inflated values to make up for lowered balances.
Embedded Fintech Startup Alpaca Raised $15 Million
California-based fintech startup Alpaca, maker of embeddable stock trading tools that third parties can install in their products, raised $15 million to fund the expansion of its business operations in Asia. The investment was made by current Alpaca customer SBI, a Japanese financial services company, to facilitate deeper integration of US stock trading experiences for the benefit of their Asian customers.
Google Restores Features To Smart Speakers After Court WIn
Several patents owned by Sonos, the high-end smart speaker maker, were invalidated by a Federal judge this week after years of protracted litigation with Google. The ruling allowed Google to restore features to its own line of smart home speakers which Sonos claimed were covered by its intellectual property rights. The patents covered the simultaneous use of multiple smart speakers, which the judge declared was not a novel concept worthy of patent protection.
AI Tools Are Mostly Loss Makers
The most popular AI tools are far from profitability, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal. While countless small startups have achieved net income with highly tailored SaaS products leveraging public AI models, Microsoft is still losing money on its Copilot products and Google has yet to introduce a paid consumer AI product.