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the incomparable one Mike Butcher just celebrated 15 years at ukbusinessupdates.com. You get less for murder these days, so that’s a great milestone, and (as far as we know) he hasn’t even seriously maimed, let alone murder, anyone. Great job, Mike. Glad you’re here with us! — Christine and hi
The ukbusinessupdates.com Top 3
- Crowdsourcing of the shipping worldBackers provided $80 million to Xeneta, valued at $265 million, for the Norway-based company’s crowdsourcing approach to determining air and ocean freight rates, Ingrid reports. Xeneta has already acquired 300 million data points from more than 100 of the world’s largest shipping companies to determine the market price for certain routes.
- Sound on: Floor Sound Just Improved – Sonos’ new Sub Mini subwoofer will arrive in some markets on October 6. darrell has more.
- Keep reaching for that wallet: The digital wallet just got some open source love, Paul reports. The Linux Foundation created the OpenWallet Foundation to develop interoperable digital wallets and evolve them from just a place to hold your currency to basically a physical wallet replacement.
Startups and VC
Meta Platforms looks at India’s nascent startup ecosystem as it bolsters its commitment to the metaverse. The social juggernaut has partnered with Indian IT ministry startup hub to launch an accelerator in the country to broaden innovation in emerging technologies including augmented reality and virtual reality, manish reports.
Following the closing of the Ultimaker/MakerBot merger this week, the combined company is announcing a new name. The entity will be known as: [drumroll, please] UltiMaker. Yes really. As for the merged names, it’s not particularly exciting, like Brian comments in his article – but the executive shakeup has some more juicy details: MakerBot CEO steps down and Ultimaker CEO steps down.
You sold your business. What now?
Image Credits: Nodar Chernishey/EyeEm (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Scaling a company from concept to acquisition is a real achievement, but it’s not the finish line, according to investor and frequent TC+ contributor Marjorie Radlo-Zandi.
“You may wonder if the acquirer really understands your products, values, culture, or the customer needs that drive the business,” she writes. “The staff will wonder if there is a place for them as part of another company.”
In her latest column, she shares “six guiding principles that make a trade a success” and help you get your full profits.
(ukbusinessupdates.com+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams move forward. You can register here. Use code “DC” for 15% off an annual subscription!)
Big Tech Inc.
It’s kind of a Twitter day! Elon Musk may regret one of his choices, but today most of Twitter’s shareholders were confident in theirs — they gave the green light to Musk’s proposed $44 billion takeover bid, Taylor writes. Paul tells us that Twitter and Musk are due to appear in court on October 17 to see if social media giant Musk can make its purchase. In other Twitter news we enjoyed BagLet’s look at what was discovered about the company when Peiter Zatko, who can now go by “Mudge” and people know who that is, testified before Congress. Also today, Aisha reported on Twitter the rollout of podcasts to Blue subscribers.
