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Welcome to 2025! The primary half of the week was comparatively quiet when it comes to startup bulletins, however exercise is already beginning to decide up. We’re additionally gearing up for CES; in case your {hardware} startup is attending, make certain to tell us.
Most attention-grabbing startup tales from the week
In contrast to different dealmaking, M&A exercise didn’t cease — at the least not on objective.
Final-minute save: Bench, the Canadian accounting startup that instantly shut down a couple of days in the past, will likely be acquired by HR tech firm Employer.com for an undisclosed sum in a last-minute deal.
2024’s final mega-deal: World Extensive Know-how (WWT), a tech providers firm primarily based in St. Louis, agreed to accumulate Canadian IT supplier Softchoice in an all-cash mega-deal at a valuation of roughly $1.25 billion.
2024’s final curtain shut: French meals supply startup Epicery ceased operations after 9 years. Since 2021, it belonged to Geopost/DPDgroup, which just lately offered last-mile supply service Stuart at a major loss.
2025’s first mega-deal: Thomson Reuters acquired tax automation firm SafeSend for $600 million in an all-cash transaction.
No completed deal: The U.Okay.’s Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA) opened an investigation into IBM’s deliberate acquisition of cloud software program vendor HashiCorp, which the Federal Commerce Fee is already investigating.
Competitors forward: In an interview with TechCrunch, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev talked about his firm’s plans to more and more compete with still-private prediction markets startups like Kalshi and Polymarket.
Most attention-grabbing fundraises this week
The brand new 12 months hunch had exceptions, and startups exterior the U.S. introduced contemporary funding rounds this week.
Dinner is served: Riyadh-based meal supply startup Calo raised $25 million to increase past the Center East, with ambitions to go international and cater to extra customized meals customization wants.
AI care: Brazilian startup Carecode, which builds AI brokers for the healthcare sector, raised a $4.3 million pre-seed spherical led by a16z and QED, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst, KDX Ventures, K50 Ventures, and Latitud Ventures.
Federated computing: Apheris, a German startup that leverages federated computing for AI life sciences use circumstances, secured $8.25 million in a Collection A spherical led by deep tech VC corporations eCAPITAL and OTB Ventures.
Most attention-grabbing VC and fund information this week
Protecting on: Accel raised $650 million for its eighth India fund. The agency, which just lately deepened its deal with rural India, will see a number of of its Indian portfolio corporations go public this 12 months.
Prediction time: Twenty VCs shared with TechCrunch their predictions on enterprise tech in 2025, from AI brokers to enterprise budgets. As an illustration, Index Ventures accomplice Nina Achadjian stated she anticipates “extra liquidity in 2025, each for M&As and the general public markets.”
Extra predictions: In line with TechCrunch’s Tim De Chant, 2025 will likely be the 12 months local weather tech learns to like AI, as a consequence of skyrocketing computing wants that drive demand for all types of improvements to cut back environmental influence.
