Welcome to Startups Weekly — a weekly roundup of must-sees from the world of startups. Want it delivered to your inbox every Friday? Sign up here.
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 are also preparing for CES. If your hardware startup is participating, be sure to let us know.
This week's most interesting startup stories
Image credit: Bench
Unlike other transactions, M&A activity did not stop. It didn't stop, at least not on purpose.
Last-minute savings: Canadian accounting startup Bench, which abruptly shut down a few days ago, will be acquired by HR tech company Employer.com for an undisclosed amount in a last-minute deal.
Last mega deal of 2024: St. Louis-based technology services company World Wide Technology (WWT) will acquire Canadian IT provider SoftChoice in an all-cash mega deal valued at approximately $1.25 billion. Agreed.
The final curtain closes in 2024: French food delivery startup Epicerie ends its operations after nine years. Since 2021, it has been part of Geopost/DPD Group, which recently sold last-mile delivery service Stuart at a significant loss.
First big deal of 2025: Thomson Reuters acquires tax automation company SafeSend for $600 million in an all-cash transaction.
No deal: Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation into IBM's planned acquisition of cloud software vendor HashiCorp, and 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 further compete with still-private prediction market startups like Kalshi and Polymarket.
This week's most interesting fundraisers
Image credit: Caro
There are exceptions to the new year's downturn, with startups outside the U.S. announcing new funding rounds this week.
Serving Dinner: Riyadh-based meal delivery startup Calo has raised $25 million to expand beyond the Middle East with ambitions to go global and meet the need for more personalized meal customization. Raised dollars.
AI Care: Carecode, a Brazilian startup building AI agents for the healthcare sector, raises $4.3 million in pre-seed round led by a16z and QED with participation from Endeavor Catalyst, KDX Ventures, K50 Ventures, and Latitud Ventures I did.
Federated Computing: Apheris, a German startup leveraging federated computing for AI life sciences use cases, has secured $8.25 million in Series A funding led by deep tech VC firm eCAPITAL and OTB Ventures. did.
This week's most interesting VC and fund news
Image credit: Axel
More: Accel raises $650 million for its 8th India fund. The company has recently deepened its focus on rural India, with several Indian portfolio companies expected to go public this year.
When to predict: 20 VCs shared their predictions for enterprise technology in 2025 with TechCrunch, from AI agents to enterprise budgets. For example, Nina Achajan, a partner at Index Ventures, said she expects “more liquidity in both M&A and public markets in 2025.”
More predictions: TechCrunch's Tim De Chant says climate change engineers will use AI in 2025 due to a surge in computing needs that will drive demand for all kinds of innovations to reduce environmental impact. They say this will be the year they learn to love.