What's Popular on Techmeme
Singapore-based MatchMove, which helps businesses embed financial services, acquires e-commerce startup Shopmatic for $200M; Shopmatic has 1M+ customers
IT services group Atos sues the UK over its £854M meteorology supercomputer contract, awarded to Microsoft in 2021; a High Court trial expected in June 2022
Xiaomi signs a long-term partnership with Leica and announces a jointly developed smartphone will launch in July 2022, likely with the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1
Meta says it plans to give outside researchers more info on political ad targeting on Facebook and Instagram and will update Ad Library with more info from July
Sources: Amazon, which has too much warehouse capacity after the pandemic, is looking to sublet over 10M square feet in New York, California, and elsewhere
bloomberg.com · 1 hour ago
After Elon Musk attempted to pause the Twitter deal, internal chat logs detail bewilderment among employees; VP Jay Sullivan says a "chaos tax" will continue
Cairo-based Sylndr, which is building an online used car marketplace, raises a $12.6M pre-seed led by RAED Ventures and plans to launch in Q4 2022 or Q1 2023
Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google will emerge stronger from this downturn; Refinitiv: from 2008 to 2010, these companies acquired 100+ firms
nytimes.com · 3 hours ago
Sources: Broadcom is in talks to acquire VMware, which has a ~$40B market cap; the discussions are ongoing and there's no guarantee they will lead to a purchase
Toronto-based Forma.ai, which helps companies manage and optimize sales compensation plans, raises a $45M Series B led by ACME Capital
AMD announces Ryzen 7000 CPUs with up to 16 Zen 4 cores based on TSMC's 5nm process, PCIe 5 and DDR5 on an AM5 motherboard, coming in fall 2022
Denver-based Velocity Global, which develops HR software for distributed workforces, raises a $400M Series B, and says it generated $125M in revenue last year
General Atlantic says it plans to invest $2B in Indian and Southeast Asian startups over the next two years, with ~15 currently in early-stage funding talks
Singapore-based BUD, which offers a metaverse for Gen Z via its apps and plans to launch an NFT marketplace, raises $36.8M Series B led by Sequoia Capital India
Sources: Broadcom is in ongoing talks to acquire VMware, but a deal is not imminent
Paytm, whose share price has dropped 57% so far this year, reports Q4 revenue of ~$200M, up 89% YoY, and a net loss of ~$98M, up 72% YoY due to higher expenses
Google details three campaigns using Predator spyware built by North Macedonian developer Cytrox which exploited five Android vulnerabilities discovered in 2021
A look at the autonomous vehicle industry, as CB Insights says equity funding for companies developing autonomous vehicles passed $12B in 2021, up 50%+ YoY
YouTube says it has taken down more than 70,000 videos and 9,000 channels related to the war in Ukraine for violating content guidelines
Interview with Arm CEO Rene Haas on Arm's future plans, investing more in R&D, its competitor RISC-V, the company's relationship with Intel, and more
London-based SaaS management startup Vertice, which aims to help businesses reduce their annual SaaS spend by 20%-30%, emerges from stealth with a $26M Series A
iFixit will sell nearly every part of the Steam Deck, including its $350 motherboard with the AMD Aerith chipset, and upgrades to fans and screen
A look at the antitrust woes of Google, which is potentially in more trouble than other Big Tech companies as several bills and lawsuits target its businesses
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde says crypto assets should be regulated, as they are "worth nothing" and "based on nothing"
Heartex, an AI-focused data labeling and annotation service, raises a $25M Series A led by Redpoint Ventures, bringing its total funding to $30M
At Pwn2Own Vancouver 2022, several bugs were exploited in Microsoft, Ubuntu, and Tesla products; first day saw $800K+ awarded for exploiting 16 zero-day bugs
A look at Indexed Finance's legal fight with a Canadian teenager who exploited the DeFi platform for $16M, which is raising several tricky legal questions
Netflix to pay $59M to settle a tax dispute in Italy, where prosecutors claimed cables and servers used by Netflix amounted to physical presence in the country
Analysis finds 46 wallets bought a combined $17.3M worth of tokens that were listed shortly after on Coinbase, Binance, and FTX, making profits of $1.7M+
Sources: Apple told some suppliers that it wants to boost production outside China, with a focus on India and Vietnam, citing Beijing's strict anti-COVID policy
Hands-on with Apple's Self-Service Repair kit to swap iPhone batteries: users are rented 79 lbs of tools, including a heat station, for a 7-day $1,200 card hold
UK-based Modulr, an API payments infrastructure provider that lets businesses automate and embed payments, raises a $108M Series C led by General Atlantic
OpenSea launches Seaport, a new marketplace protocol which allows users to bundle different digital assets in exchange for an NFT, support for tipping, and more
Singapore-based online fashion marketplace Zilingo fires CEO Ankiti Bose after a probe found "serious financial irregularities"; Bose was suspended in April
Dutch e-commerce company Prosus says it is exiting Russia and is looking to sell Avito, its classifieds ads business in the country valued at an estimated $6B
Report: EA is looking to sell or merge its business; sources say EA has held talks with Disney, Apple, Amazon, and NBCUniversal
Kuo: Apple is working on an updated version of the HomePod for release in the Q4 2022 or Q1 2023
Google agrees to let Match Group offer alternative billing to Android users; the Tinder owner drops its request for a temporary restraining order against Google
Google agrees to keep Bandcamp in the Play Store even if it doesn't adopt Google's in-app payment system; Epic will keep 10% of Bandcamp's IAP revenue in escrow
Bravado, a networking service and jobs marketplace for sales professionals, raises a $26M Series B led by Tiger Global
Court docs and a source: Larry Ellison participated in a November 14, 2020 call that focused on strategies for contesting the legitimacy of the 2020 US election
In its annual diversity report, Google saw its "largest increases in representation of Black and Latinx Googlers in the US" at 20% YoY and 8% YoY, respectively
Qualcomm unveils the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, says it will offer 10% faster CPU performance, 10% faster GPU clocks, and have up to 30% better power efficiency
HP refreshes Spectre x360 laptop with Intel 12th-gen and Ryzen 5000 chips, Intel Arc GPU, beefed up webcam, and a quieter fan, starting at $1,650
Qualcomm updates its AR Smart Viewer reference design with a higher-powered chipset, a wireless tethering system with Wi-Fi 6 / 6E and Bluetooth, and more
Report details Jony Ive's work on Apple's MR headset as sources say he remains involved as an external consultant and that the device is not gaming focused
Amazon is testing a service that uses its Flex drivers to deliver packages from mall-based retailers, expanding the variety of goods available for fast shipment
bloomberg.com · 3 days ago