Friday, January 3, 2025

Image Credits: alashi / Getty Images

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can't miss from the world of startups.

Welcome to 2025! The first half of the week was relatively quiet in terms of startup announcements, but activity is already starting to pick up. We're also gearing up for CES; if your hardware startup is attending, make sure to let us know.

Most interesting startup stories from the week

Image Credits: Bench

Unlike other dealmaking, M&A activity didn't stop — at least not on purpose.

Last-minute save: Bench, the Canadian accounting startup that suddenly shut down a few days ago, will be acquired by HR tech company Employer.com for an undisclosed sum in a last-minute deal.

2024's last mega-deal: World Wide Technology (WWT), a tech services company based in St. Louis, agreed to acquire Canadian IT provider Softchoice in an all-cash mega-deal at a valuation of approximately $1.25 billion.

2024's last curtain close: French food delivery startup Epicery ceased operations after nine years. Since 2021, it belonged to Geopost/DPDgroup, which recently sold last-mile delivery service Stuart at a significant loss.

2025's first mega-deal: Thomson Reuters acquired tax automation company SafeSend for $600 million in an all-cash transaction.

No done deal: The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened an investigation into IBM's planned acquisition of cloud software vendor HashiCorp, which the Federal Trade Commission is already investigating.

Competition ahead: In an interview with TechCrunch, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev talked about his company's plans to increasingly compete with still-private prediction markets startups like Kalshi and Polymarket.

Most interesting fundraises this week

Image Credits: Calo

The new year slump had exceptions, and startups outside the U.S. announced fresh funding rounds this week.

Dinner is served: Riyadh-based meal delivery startup Calo raised $25 million to expand beyond the Middle East, with ambitions to go global and cater to more personalized food customization needs.

AI care: Brazilian startup Carecode, which builds AI agents for the healthcare sector, raised a $4.3 million pre-seed round 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 cases, secured $8.25 million in a Series A round led by deep tech VC firms eCAPITAL and OTB Ventures.

Most interesting VC and fund news this week

Image Credits: Accel

Keeping on: Accel raised $650 million for its eighth India fund. The firm, which recently deepened its focus on rural India, will see several of its Indian portfolio companies go public this year.

Prediction time: Twenty VCs shared with TechCrunch their predictions on enterprise tech in 2025, from AI agents to enterprise budgets. For instance, Index Ventures partner Nina Achadjian said she anticipates "more liquidity in 2025, both for M&As and the public markets."

More predictions: According to TechCrunch's Tim De Chant, 2025 will be the year climate tech learns to love AI, due to skyrocketing computing needs that drive demand for all sorts of innovations to reduce environmental impact.