Competition policy must change to help startups fight ‘winner takes all’ platforms, says UK report

A independent report commissioned by the UK government to examine how competition policy needs to adapt itself for the digital age has concluded that tech giants don’t face adequate competition and the law needs updating to address what it dubs the “novel” challenges of ‘winner takes all’ platforms. The panel also recommends more policy interventions […]

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Okta to acquire workflow automation startup Azuqua for $52.5M

During its earnings report yesterday afternoon, Okta announced it intends to acquire Azuqua, a Bellevue, Washington workflow automation startup for $52.5 million. In a blog post announcing the news, Okta co-founder and COO Frederic Kerrest saw the combining of the two companies as a way to move smoothly between applications in a complex workflow without […]

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SurveyMonkey acquires web survey company Usabilla for $80M

SurveyMonkey announced today that it has acquired Usabilla, an Amsterdam-based website and app survey company, for $80 million in cash and stock. Zander Lurie, CEO at SurveyMonkey, said Usabilla filled in a missing piece in its survey toolkit. “A key product that we identified that we really wanted to add to the portfolio, which is […]

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How to prepare for an investment apocalypse

Micah Rosenbloom Contributor Micah Rosenbloom is a venture partner at Founder Collective. More posts by this contributor Business school grads and quants are winning the battle to create the next P&G Startups need to respect the laws of retail physics Unlike 2000 and 2008, everyone in the startup world is expecting a crash to come […]

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AWS makes another acquisition grabbing TSO Logic

AWS has been on a mini shopping spree since the first of the year. First it picked off Israeli disaster recovery startup CloudEndure last week. This week, it was TSO Logic, a Vancouver startup that helps companies make the most efficient use of cloud resources. The companies did not share the purchase price. Amazon confirmed […]

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Smartsheet acquires Slope to help creatives collaborate

Smartsheet, the project management and collaboration tool that went public last April, announced the acquisition of Seattle-based TernPro, Inc., makers of Slope, a collaboration tool designed for sharing creative assets. The companies did not share the acquisition price. Bringing Slope into the fold will enable Smartsheet users to share assets like video and photos natively […]

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Motorola Solutions acquires VaaS, makers of automated license plate readers, for $445M

Motorola Solutions, which split off from Motorola Mobility back in 2011, has added a new license plate capture tool to it law enforcement suite with the acquisition of VaaS International Holdings today for $445 million in cash and equity. The acquisition should help enhance the company’s set of law enforcement products. “Within the public safety space [Motorola Solutions] […]

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Private equity buyouts have become viable exit options — even for early stage startups

Ajay Chopra Contributor Ajay Chopra co-founded Pinnacle Systems in his living room and grew it to a multi-billion dollar public company before becoming a venture capitalist with Trinity Ventures. More posts by this contributor Full autonomy is years away, but here’s what’s next on autonomy’s wild ride From the distributed workforce to the partnered economy […]

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Autodesk adds to construction software biz with acquisition of BuildingConnected for $275M

Autodesk announced this morning that it intends to buy construction software platform, BuildingConnected for $275 million (net of the startup’s cash on hand). It comes on the heels of the company’s PlanGrid purchase for $875 million just last month. With BuildingConnected, the company gets a network of 700,000 construction-related professionals that help real estate companies […]

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These 10 enterprise M&A deals totaled over $87 billion this year

M&A activity was brisk in the enterprise market this year, with 10 high-profile deals totaling almost $88 billion. Companies were opening up their wallets and pouring money into mega acquisitions. It’s worth noting that the $88 billion figure doesn’t include Dell paying investors more than $23 billion for VMware tracking stock to take the company […]

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Cisco to acquire silicon photonics chip maker Luxtera for $660 million

As networks get put under increasing pressure from ever-growing amounts of data, network equipment manufacturers are facing huge challenges to increase data transmissions speeds over further distances. As a premiere networking equipment company, Cisco wants to be prepared to meet that demand. Today, it opened up its checkbook and announced its intent to acquire Luxtera […]

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Ten pieces of friendly VC advice for when someone wants to buy your company

David Frankel Contributor David Frankel is a managing partner at Founder Collective. More posts by this contributor Startups should read this checklist before they go ‘whale hunting’ for big partners You earn a million dollars a year and can’t get funded? I’ve been fortunate to have been part of half a dozen exits this year, […]

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