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hi and I switch places for the next two days while he gets some much needed rest. In his absence, enjoy his latest Pitch Deck Teardown on Glambook. Meanwhile, ukbusinessupdates.com Disrupt gets closer: meet the final five Disrupt Audience Choice roundtable winners, and if you’re a student, enter our video contest for a chance to win a free pass.
And don’t forget that Startup Battlefield 200 registrations close tomorrow! Apply today to join Startup Battlefield 200 for a chance to showcase your startup for free at ukbusinessupdates.com Disrupt in October and win the $100,000 stock-free prize. Applications close on August 5. Get your applications in tomorrow! Sign up today.
See you tomorrow! — Christine
The ukbusinessupdates.com Top 3
- Round tool: Two years ago, two former Palantir engineers started Kurtosis, a crypto-focused developer tool system, and have now raised $20 million in new funding to hire a team to release a new product next year, Jacquelyn reports.
- Tie up on some capital: Argentine fintech Geopagos is leaving bootstrapped life as it needs $35 million in new capital to help companies launch their own financial services products, Mary Ann writes.
- ‘Snap’ping in some share buybacks: Snap and Airbnb moves to buy back shares amid slower growth Alex raising his eyebrows and looking under the hood to see what’s going on.
Startups and VC
Lots of startup news again today, so let’s dig. Natasha M brings us some additional layoff news from On Deck, which is firing another third of its staff after a quarter of a few months ago. For those of you who can add fractions, that’s a lot, right?
We enjoyed reading Becca‘s story of an investor survey, in which she interviewed six fund managers for the first time about their approach to weathering the recession.
In the consumer world, too, buying now, paying later is still more common (see Anita‘s financing story on Halliday), but companies also want to get involved. That’s where Kontepo comes in with $30 million and its approach to empowering sales teams to approve credit, Kylea reports.
- An app a day keeps the ads away: Nobody likes pop-up ads and a new app, Banish, you feel, Sarah writes.
- Connecting content with people: Link closed for some early stage funding to match creators with companies in need of content, Dominic-Madori reports.
- rill good: Rill, a business dashboarding tool, speaks for the first time about a new round and its product that embeds a database and direct user experience, Ron writes.
- An offer they couldn’t refuse: MiroBio, a startup developing treatments for autoimmune patients, accepted an offer to become part of Gilead Sciences for $405 million, Paul reports.
From NDA to LOI: What Really Happens When Your Startup Is Acquired?
Image Credits: Anna Minkina (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Last week, VP and managing director of Dell Technologies Capital Yair Snir shared an article explaining why founders are planning to acquire, especially since their chances of going public are so high.
In a sequel, he takes readers through the post-acquisition integration period/process:
- The shop print
- The road to a LOI
- Bringing in bankers
- Dive into due diligence
- Defining “Day One”
- You have been taken over!
“While IPOs can make more headlines, a well-timed, well-planned acquisition can mean even greater opportunities for you, your team, and the technologies you’ve built,” says Snir.
(ukbusinessupdates.com+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams move forward. You can register here.)
Big Tech Inc.
When it comes to cryptocurrency, BlackRock now says, “Why beat them when you can join them?” Anita writes about the wealth management giant joining forces with Coinbase to give its clients access to crypto, initially Bitcoin. And speaking of Coinbase, Jacquelyn and Alex write for ukbusinessupdates.com+ about why that partnership, and others Coinbase has, are delighting investors.
In terms of social media, we have enjoyed Amanda‘s story where she spoke with Patreon CEO Jack Conte about why Instagram and Facebook are on his list, and not in a good way. And Aisha tells us what’s going on with some of the new Clubhouse features.
- car talk: Volkswagen is gearing up to roll out a cheaper version of its 2023 ID.4 later this year, Kirsten writes. In the meantime, Rebecca brings us stories about UFODrive, a European electric vehicle rental start-up, making its debut in San Francisco, and what happens to Lyft employees after layoff news.
- Wally World fired: Inflation has even the biggest companies examining their budgets, and in this case, Ivan reports that Walmart is laying off 200 company employees.
- Samsung in key from G: Ivan also writes about Samsung bringing Amazon Luna games to its smart TVs and monitors, while Brian highlights what goodies Samsung could announce at next week’s Unpacked event.
- Streamers gone: In today’s streaming news, Tage reports on Amazon Prime Video launching a local service in Nigeria while Lauren writes about SoundCloud announcing some layoffs and that Paramount+ has a good quarter in subscriber count.
- Giving back, just not in the way they wanted: manish reports that the State Bank of Pakistan has ordered fintech startup Tag to refund all funds to customers, “citing violations of legal requirements and ‘other concerns’, raising existential questions about the startup’s future.”
