Welcome to Startups Weekly — a weekly recap of everything unmissable from the startup world. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Log in here. Welcome to 2025! The first half of the week was relatively quiet in terms of startup announcements, but activity has already begun. We are also preparing for CES; if your hardware startup is attending, be sure to let us know. The most interesting start-up story of the week Image Credit: Bench Unlike other dealmaking, M&A activity doesn’t stop – at least not accidentally. Last-minute savings: Bench, the Canadian accounting startup that suddenly shut down a few days ago, will be acquired by HR technology company Employer.com for an undisclosed sum in a last-minute deal. The last mega-deal of 2024: World Wide Technology (WWT), a technology services company based in St. Louis, has agreed to acquire Canadian IT provider Softchoice in an all-cash mega deal worth about $1.25 billion. Final curtain closes 2024: French food delivery startup Epicery ceases operations after nine years. From 2021, it will belong to Geopost / DPDgroup, which recently sold Stuart’s last mile delivery service at a significant loss. First mega deal of 2025: Thomson Reuters acquires tax automation company SafeSend for $600 million in an all-cash deal. No deal: The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened an investigation into IBM’s planned acquisition of cloud software vendor HashiCorp, which has been investigated by the Federal Trade Commission. Competition ahead: In an interview with TechCrunch, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev talked about the company’s plans to compete with the still-private prediction market startups like Kalshi and Polymarket. This week’s most interesting fundraising Image Credit: Brokers The new year slump had exceptions, and startups outside the US announced new funding rounds this week. Dinner is served: Riyadh-based food delivery startup Calo has raised $25 million to expand in the Middle East, with ambitions to go global and meet the need for more personalized food customization. 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 uses federated computing for AI life science use cases, has raised $8.25 million in a Series A round led by deep-tech VC firms eCAPITAL and OTB Ventures. This week’s most interesting VC and funding news Image Credit: Accel Keeping on: Accel raises $650 million for eighth India fund. The company, which has recently focused on rural India, will see several of its Indian portfolio companies go public this year. Forecast time: Twenty VCs share with TechCrunch their predictions for corporate technology in 2025, from AI agents to corporate budgets. For example, Index Ventures partner Nina Achadjian said she expects “more liquidity in 2025, both for M&A and the general market.” Another prediction: According to TechCrunch’s Tim De Chant, 2025 will be the year climate technology learns to love AI, because of the skyrocketing computing needs that lead to the demand for all kinds of innovations to reduce environmental impact.
