The Techee

A leading maker of plant-based meat substitutes, Impossible Foods , has obtained a fresh cash infusion from VCs. It has  raised $500mn in new funding, bringing the total amount of funding it has raised since inception to $2bn.  The latest round was provided entirely by existing investors doubling down on Impossible Foods.  Mirae Asset Global , a Korean investment firm, led the round and was joined by other unnamed existing investors.  It's evident that investors are longing for Impossible Foods, a leading brand in the nascent market for plant-based meat substitutes. There's clearly huge potential for plant-based meat substitutes, driven by an increasing vegan population and the appeal to lower the carbon footprint that spurs from meat consumption. To that end, Impossible Foods is growing rapidly. Its products can now be found in more than 20,000 retail stores, compared to 150 as of March 2020, and 40,000 restaurants globally. Over the past year, Impossible has launched in ne

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is freshly on the antitrust circuit, seeking to block a merger it deems detrimental to consumers. The agency has filed a lawsuit to block the sale of  Imperial Sugar , a leading American sugar producer, to rival  U.S. Sugar . The DOJ says the proposed deal will make just two sugar producers account for an "overwhelming majority" of refined sugar sales in the U.S. Southeast, U.S. Sugar being one of the two producers. This concentration of power would make consumers pay more for refined sugar, the DOJ says.  Imperial Sugar is owned by Louis Dreyfus Company, a privately-held agricultural giant based in the Netherlands. The company agreed to sell Imperial to rival U.S. Sugar for the sum of $315mn this March.  U.S. Sugar is another privately-held agricultural giant headquartered in Florida. It can produce up to 850,000 tons of sugar annually at its refinery plant in Florida, and buying Imperial would give it two more sugar plants in Kentuc

Tech giants Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) have been handed sizeable fines by the Italian government following an investigation into alleged reseller collusion between both companies. Amazon was fined €135mn ($151mn) and Apple  €69mn ($78mn), totaling $229mn .  The fine was levied by the  Italian Competition Authority . According to the agency, Apple and Amazon had a contractual agreement to allow  select resellers to sell Apple and Beats products on Amazon's Italian marketplace. The agency said that the selection was applied in a "discriminatory" way that violated European Union rules and affected price competition. According to the  Italian Competition Authority, at least 70% of local consumer electronics purchases are made on Amazon, making it a dominant retailer. This dominance, therefore, demands a "level playing field" for retailers that sell on Amazon's marketplace, the agency said. This is the nth time Amazon is getting in the cr

Tech giant Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has filed a lawsuit against NSO Group , a controversial Israeli company that sells smartphone hacking tools and has been  implicated in the hacks and surveillance of many notable persons, including journalists, activists, and business executives, by state-sponsored actors. Apple has sued NSO Group for infecting iPhones with spyware to track users of interest. As part of the suit, the tech giant seeks a permanent injunction to ban NSO Group from using any Apple products. NSO Group is best known for its Pegasus spyware that can be covertly installed on mobile phones running most versions of iOS and Android. The company exploits vulnerabilities in both operating systems to introduce spyware into a phone without the user's knowledge. Pegasus was the center of a Washington Post investigation called "The Pegasus Project," revealing that the spyware was used to surveil over 1,000 identified notable individuals across countries with shoddy hu

Niantic , an augmented reality (AR) company whose products include the famous  Pokémon Go game, has raised a big new round of funding. It's raised $300mn in funding at a valuation of $9bn. All the funding came from just one investor; Coatue , a New York-based hedge fund famous for investing in many blue-chip tech startups. With its new funding, Niantic says it'll invest in current games and new apps and expand its AR developer platform called Lightship . The company says it's set on building the "real-world metaverse," jumping on the bandwagon popularized by Facebook's parent firm, Meta.  The base for Niantic's metaverse vision is the Lightship developer platform which it launched this month. It's a platform for developers to build augmented reality apps and experiences, drawing from Niantic's tools that helped create its hit  Pokémon Go game. To draw creators to Lightship, Niantic has also set up a $20mn venture fund to invest in AR startups

Private equity giant KKR (NYSE: KKR) has ventured into Italy for its latest buyout deal. The firm has offered to buy Telecom Italia (BIT: TIT), the largest telecom provider in Italy, in a deal worth  €33bn ($37bn), including debt. KKR offered 0.505 Euros in cash for each outstanding  Telecom Italia share, a 46% premium to the last closing share price before the offer. That sums up to  €10.7bn ($12bn) in cash to be paid for Telecom Italia, and including the telecom firm's large net debt of €22.5bn ($25bn) sums up to $37bn in total.  KKR's offer is non-binding and must be approved by Telecom Italia's board members and majority shareholders before the deal goes through. Approval must also come from the Italian government, which was veto power over the takeover of the formerly state-owned telecoms firm.  Telecom Italia gave no indication that it'll approve the deal. If approval is given, it'll mark one of the biggest buyout deals of a European company by an America

Authentic Brands Group , a New York-based retail conglomerate, has suspended its plans for an initial public offering (IPO) after already filing an S-1 document with the US SEC. The company has instead opted to raise private funding to fund expansion in the main time. Authentic Brands Group's portfolio retail brands include apparel retailer Forever21 , men's suit maker Brooks Brothers , and department store chain Barneys New York . The company is akin to an old people's home where once-vibrant retail brands go to stay after they've gone past their peak. Authentic buys these befallen retail companies and makes money from what's left of them through licensing deals.  Over the years, Authentic has relied on hefty venture funding to assemble its constellation of old-guard brands. An IPO was supposed to raise even more money for expansion but has been set aside in favor of private funding.  Authentic is  rather selling  equity stakes to private equity firm CVC Capital

Workday (NASDAQ: WDAY), the famous HR/finance software vendor, has made a big new acquisition to support its platform. The company will acquire Vndly , a software platform for companies to manage contract workers. Vndly fits in well in Workday's overall software suite, and the rationale behind the purchase is clear. Vndly is an Ohio-based startup. Workday will pay $510mn to buy it, marking one of Ohio's biggest startup exits this year. Vndly has raised roughly $60mn from VCs, so a $510mn exit is very lucrative and more so for a startup founded just four years ago .  Before now, Vndly and Workday were already close allies. Vndly's platform is integrated with Workday's, with official certification to go. The Mason, Ohio-based startup is part of Workday's global network of endorsed software partners, so Workday didn't even have to look far to snatch its latest acquisition.  Vndly was founded in 2017 by two entrepreneurs,  Shashank Saxena and Narayana Surabhi .

CVC Capital Partners , a leading private equity firm, has scored its latest deal in the consumer goods sector. It's agreed to buy the tea business of British consumer goods conglomerate Unilever (LON: ULVR) for  €4.5bn ($5.1bn)  in cash. Unilever's tea business comprises 34 global brands, including the well-known  Lipton , PG Tips , and T2 Tea . Last year, all the tea brands on the deal's table brought in a collective  €2bn ($2.3bn) in revenue . However , the sale to CVC excludes Unilever's tea business in  India, Nepal, Indonesia, and its bottled tea joint venture with PepsiCo ( Pepsi Lipton ), which accounts for €1bn in annual sales. Unilever announced plans to spin off its tea business last year, and the sale to CVC represents the conclusion of that spin-off. The company's tea business, now named Ekaterra , has struggled with meager sales growth as part of the industry's general trend. This is the type of situation where PE firms usually step in, seeking t

Chipmaking giant Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has unveiled the financial results for its latest fiscal quarter ended October 31, 2021. The company reported a sharp rise in sales that can only be described as being on a tear. Nvidia posted $7.1bn in revenue in the quarter, up 50% year-over-year . The large growth was driven mostly by the company's data center sales, which increased 55% year-over-year to $2.9bn. Similarly, Nvidia's gaming revenue rose 42% year-over-year to $3.2bn. Net income for the quarter was $2.5bn , up 4% from the same period last year. It was an outstanding quarter all-around for Nvidia, a beneficiary of the recent massive growth of the gaming industry and data center boom. Nvidia's GeForce graphics cards are very popular with gamers, and data center operators patronize Nvidia's high-performance graphics processors for artificial intelligence applications.  Save for data centers and gaming, Nvidia has other minor product lines, including automotive chip

The latest tech startup to board the IPO train is Samsara , a VC-backed startup that makes internet-of-things (IoT)-based fleet monitoring hardware and software for logistical operators. It has unveiled an S-1 filing with the US SEC, showing its intention to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Samsara has raised nearly $1bn from VCs including Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, and General Catalyst, with a valuation of $5.4bn from its last funding round. The company's co-founders sold a previous startup named Meraki to Cisco for $1.2bn . As expected, Samsara's S-1 filing gives a deep glimpse into the company's business with information not publicly disclosed before. The company has been rather secretive over the years, making this long-awaited information. We've extracted some important information so you don't have to, mostly the financial stuff. Samsara brought in $303mn in revenue in the nine months ended October 2021, compared to $174mn in the same

Last month, the biggest gist of the tech world was Facebook Inc , the social media giant, rebranding as Meta Platforms Inc  in a nod to its renewed focus on the "metaverse." CEO Mark Zuckerberg apparently saw the light and judged the metaverse to be his tech empire's focus henceforth.  Remarkably, a trillion-dollar company has gone all-in on a sector many people can't even explain. We're aware that many are confused because online queries for the metaverse have exploded since Facebook's name change. Take this Google Trends chart below as an example, showing a significant increase in queries for " What is metaverse? " since October when Facebook announced the name change. To help quell the confusion, we want to introduce you to the metaverse and what it entails, and why Facebook is going all-in on it. After reading this, expect to have an adequate understanding on the metaverse and Facebook's play with it, so much that you could explain to a str

Among US states, Utah is one of the few with a flourishing tech startup scene. In recent years, the state has seen a remarkable uptick in tech deals, i.e., VC funding and acquisitions (exits). Some recent big exits from the state include Divvy ( $2.5bn ), Acima Credit   ($1.7bn ), Workfront ( $1.5bn ), and Pluralsight ( $3.5bn ). Another billion-dollar exit has been added to Utah's roster. It's SimpleNexus , a digital mortgage platform that's been sold to nCino (NASDAQ: NCINO), a banking tech platform. nCino will pay $1.2bn in cash and stock to buy SimpleNexus and integrate it under its own platform. The price tag is split into $240mn in cash and 13.2 million nCino shares making up the remainder. After a successful IPO last year, it isn't surprising that nCino is using its valuable stock as currency for a major acquisition. SimpleNexus is a platform used by lenders to manage home loans. It's a strategic addition to nCino, whose platform is used to facilitat

There's a new noteworthy company boarding the IPO train. This time, it isn't the usual tech company we mostly write about but a famous yogurt producer in America. Chobani  has unveiled an S-1 filing for an initial public offering with the US SEC. Chobani is famous for its thick, Greek-style yogurts that it made popular in North America. The company is the brainwork of Hamdi Ulukaya , a Turkish immigrant to the US who was born to a dairy-farming family and stayed true to his roots when he arrived in the country. As expected, Chobani's S-1 filing gives great insight into its business. We've extracted some important information from the S-1 filing, so you don't have to, mostly on its financials. Chobani brought in $1.4bn in revenue in 2020 and roughly $1.3bn in 2019 and 2018. That shows a stable, thriving business but bare growth over the years. The yogurt business isn't a high-margin one, indicated by Chobani's gross profit percentages in the past three years

Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB), the publicly-traded space launch company, has made its second acquisition in a two-month span. It's acquiring   Planetary Systems Corporation (PSC) , a Maryland-based company that makes spacecraft separation systems.  Like the wording suggests, spacecraft separation entails separating spacecraft from rockets mechanically and protecting them during launch. It's a crucial step in successfully launching satellites or other types of spacecraft into orbit. Buying Planetary Systems fits into Rocket Lab's goal of being not just a launch provider but an end-to-end provider for all the processes involved in launching satellites into orbit. Rocket Lab will pay $42mn in cash and roughly 1.7 million shares ( worth $27mn currently ) upfront to buy Planetary. There's an additional 956,000 shares (worth nearly $15mn currently) to be paid out if Planetary hits certain financial targets in the next two years. Upfront, Rocket Lab will cough up about $70mn for

Barely two weeks ago, we wrote about Casper Sleep (NYSE: CSPR), an online  sleep products  retailer that has trended downhill since its IPO two years ago and was scrambling to raise much-needed cash to support its business. It turns out that a private equity firm saw the company's struggles as a takeover opportunity and swooped in with an offer that's been agreed to.  Casper will be acquired by  Durational Capital Management , a New York-based private equity firm, the company has announced . The PE firm will pay $6.90 in cash for each Casper share, a 94% premium to the company's closing price on Friday, the 12th of November. At $6.90 per share, Durational will pay a total of $286mn in cash to buy Casper Sleep. That's roughly half of the $575mn valuation that Casper IPOed at in 2019 and roughly a quarter of its peak $1.1bn valuation as a privately-held company. In honest terms, this acquisition isn't a win but seems to be the best deal Casper can get. Casper mad

Restaurant Brands International  (NYSE: QSR), the parent firm of fast-food chains Burger King , Tim Hortons , and Popeyes , is adding another chain to its collection. It's buying Firehouse Subs , a privately-held fast-food chain with over a thousand locations across the US and Canada. Restaurant Brands will pay $1bn in cash for Firehouse Subs, a lucrative exit for the owners who founded the chain nearly three decades ago. That's a lot of reward for selling much-desired salads and submarine sandwiches across America.  Firehouse Subs was founded in 1994 by two former firefighter brothers, Chris Sorensen and Robin Sorensen . They've been involved in the company ever since and grown it with the help of some other key executives, such as CEO Don Fox and CFO Vincent Burchianti . Firehouse Subs brought in $869mn in sales in 2020 and is expected to bring in $1.1bn this year, the company says. At that revenue level, a $1bn price tag for the entire chain is on par with most takeov

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), the pharmaceuticals giant whose products include a Covid-19 vaccine, is undergoing a big shakeup. It has announced that it'll spin off its consumer health business as a separate public company to focus on pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Johnson & Johnson's consumer health business includes products like the Listerine mouthwash, Aveeno skincare products, and the  Band-Aid brand of adhesive bandages. It brought in $14bn out of the company's $82bn in sales last year. Spinning off its consumer unit, Johnson & Johnson will focus more on its pharmaceuticals and medical device businesses that bring in the vast majority of revenue. For companies of J&J's caliber, consumer health products with slow & steady revenues seem distracting from the high-risk, high-reward work of developing and marketing pharmaceutical treatments, e.g., Covid vaccine. In such a case, it makes sense to separate J&J's consumer health

Rue Gilt Groupe , an online retailer of fashion products, is the latest e-commerce company to test the waters of a public listing. It's unveiled an S-1 filing with the US SEC to hold an initial public offering (IPO). The company will list on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Rue Gilt Groupe is a collection of e-commerce sites focused on premium fashion. Its three main brands are Rue La La , Gilt , and Shop Premium Products . Rue La La is a membership-based site, Gilt is a direct online retailer, and Shop Premium Products is a marketplace. As expected, the S-1 filing gives an extensive insight into Rue Gilt Groupe's business. We've extracted some vital information, so you don't have to, mostly on its financials. Rue Gilt Groupe posted $516mn in sales in the nine months ended October 2, 2021, compared to $386mn in roughly the same period last year. Net-wise, the company is unprofitable buy slightly so , with a net loss of $12.6mn in the nine months ended October 2021 and $20mn

On Thursday, electric car startup Rivian held a successful IPO, not just any IPO but the largest one in seven years. With great investor demand, it  raised $12bn by selling 153 million shares at $78 each. Moreover, the company's stock jumped from $78 at debut to $130 currently, valuing it at $111bn , despite having no revenue yet.  The biggest beneficiary from Rivian's listing was Amazon , the e-commerce giant which owned a 20% pre-IPO stake in the electric carmaker. Amazon is Rivian's biggest customer and, before the IPO,  invested a total of $1.3bn across several private funding rounds. Its Rivian stake is now worth north of $20bn .  It turns out Amazon didn't just stop at buying Rivian shares privately. The tech giant also bought more shares in Rivian's public offering. According to a recent Form 4 filing , Amazon bought $200mn worth of shares at the IPO price of $78. The purchase upped the value of its Rivian stake to slightly above 20% , worth about $21bn a

Spotify (NYSE: SPOT) has once again made a strategic acquisition to bolster its business outside music streaming. It's  announced plans to buy  Findaway , an audiobook distributor, for an undisclosed sum. After making hay in the music streaming business, Spotify has sought to expand into other forms of audio. Its first target was podcasts, wherein it spent nearly a billion dollars to buy several podcast startups. With Findaway, audiobooks also appear to be part of Spotify's play. Findaway offers a collection of tools for audiobook publishers to create and distribute their content. Its apps include  Findaway Voices , to connect authors with professional narrators; Playway , for audiobook distribution across libraries and schools; and AudioEngine , for developers to integrate audiobooks into their platforms. Such tools make good targets for Spotify's bid to be an important platform for audiobook publishers. Findaway has a team of around 150 employees joining Spotify once the