TikTok makes nice with UMG: We need a new rule: If companies are happy to reveal numbers when publicly fighting with one another, they must share the terms when they eventually kiss and make up. Otherwise, we'll be feeling stuck as we are today, watching TikTok and UMG happily buddying up once again without telling anyone the terms of their agreement. Show us where the money is going! Read More
Freshworks drops $230M to pick up Device42: Freshworks has dropped nearly a quarter billion dollars to buy Device42, an IT-focused company that has raised a total of nearly $40 million, per Crunchbase data. The pairing makes sense for Freshworks, because it has an IT-focused product line, which means that this deal is additive. Read More
Butcher Box snaps up Truffle Shuffle: More startups should have fun names like these. Meat delivery company Butcher Box has purchased Truffle Shuffle, a service that started life as a truffle purveyor, but pivoted into a cooking-at-home service during the pandemic. Read More
Private equity is interested in cybersecurity: Tel Aviv-based BioCatch is now worth $1.3 billion after private equity firm Permira snapped up more shares from existing investors and became a majority investor. Recall that last week we saw Thoma Bravo buy Darktrace for $5 billion. Given the sheer number of cyber breaches that TechCrunch reports, I get the opportunity in the market for such companies. Read More
Renda raises $1.9M to power African logistics: The business of moving goods around is no small enterprise, especially in e-commerce, where delivery times are competitive and incumbents are often wealthy. But in Africa, Renda reckons that an asset-light, end-to-end fulfillment solution is going to help it win. The startup intends to use its new capital to expand in its current markets of Nigeria and Kenya. Read More
Change Healthcare hack may impact one-third of Americans: During a Congressional hearing, the CEO of UnitedHealth, admitted that the recent breach of its subsidiary, Change Healthcare, impacted "maybe a third [of Americans] or somewhere of that level." That's a lot of people; like nine-figures. If every person that got impacted by this hack were a dollar, and one startup raised that much, we'd be shouting about it at the top of this newsletter. Read More
Free-market the way to Mars: NASA wants private companies to help it get to Mars. We first learned that when the agency scrapped its Mars rock return mission and turned to external parties. Now, NASA is awarding a dozen research tasks to private companies as a prelude to commercial support for future missions to the Red Planet. Read More
