To understand the strategy at work here, you likely need only look at your recent phone calls and text messages. Mobile channels are a mess. As a result, many consumers refuse to answer calls from numbers not listed in their contact list. This poses a significant problem for organizations across industries, including financial services, healthcare and the public sector, which often need to use the phone to reach people and relay critical information.
Financial terms of the deal, announced by FairWave on Feb. 2, were not disclosed. FairWave, based in Kansas City and backed by Great Range Capital , said its holdings now include 14 coffee, tea and bakery brands operating in more than 40 cafes, roasteries and bakeries. FairWave brands currently operate in the regional markets of Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Baltimore/Annapolis and North Carolina's Triangle.
Founded in Slovenia in 2002, REAL Security operates in eight countries across the region, connecting cybersecurity vendors with VARs, MSPs and MSSPs in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania, and North Macedonia. The firm is known for its focus on emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, and blockchain, and as the organizer of the regional cybersecurity event, RISK.
Content creator Khaby Lame has sold his core company for $975m (R15 518 311 575). The 25-year-old Italian citizen of Senegalese descent sold his company, Step Distinctive Limited, which manages his global brand and commercial activities, to Rich Sparkle. According to PRNewsire, Rich Sparkle is a Hong Kong-based US-listed company. The acquisition signals a shift from one-off brand deals to a structured, exclusive, full-chain, platform-style commercialisation system.
Authentic Brands Group has acquired a majority stake in Guess' intellectual property for $16.75 per share, according to financial filings Friday. Existing Guess shareholders - Maurice Marciano, Paul Marciano, Nicolai Marciano and Carlos Alberini and various financial affiliates - now own 49% of the brand's IP. Guess' current management also now owns 100% of the operating company and will continue to run that business, maintaining operations in Switzerland.
Smithfield President and CEO Shane Smith said that the deal was a "meaningful step" in the company's evolution. "Since entering into our licensing agreement in 2014, we have made significant investments to build and grow the Nathan's Famous brand," Smith said in a statement. "With our manufacturing scale, marketing strength, product innovation capabilities, and retail and foodservice channel expertise, acquiring Nathan's Famous will allow us to take the brand to new heights."
"This is a kind of a classic example of a prepared mind meets opportunity," Kashani said. "Robots that are moving among people is the broader opportunity for us. Once you solve the problem, which is how to get robots to seamlessly move among people as autonomous machines, then you can bring it to a lot of other environments. We knew that we wanted to do this someday."
The deal follows a period of rapid expansion for Lower, including the launch of a West Coast division in December led by Gino Fronti as the company continues to invest in geographic growth and talent across the country. The company also announced an acquisition of real estate portal Movoto from parent company OJO Labs in May 2025 and software company Neat Labs at the tail end of 2024.
SPINS wanted to expand into MikMak's space - which is to say, serving online ads and driving online conversions - as an extension of its in-store purchase and shelf-monitoring data offering. The conversation quickly changed to, "actually, what would it look like if these two entities came together?" Margolis said. For MikMak, the appeal, according to the startup's CEO and Founder Rachel Tipograph, is that SPINS "has a proprietary data asset that we always wish we had."
Strive, Inc. announced today that stockholders of Semler Scientific, Inc. approved its acquisition by Strive, marking a landmark deal in publicly traded Bitcoin-backed companies. The all-stock transaction includes Semler Scientific's 5,048.1 Bitcoin, significantly expanding Strive's digital asset holdings. In addition, the company said they purchased 123 more Bitcoin for its corporate treasury at an average price of $91,561 per coin, for a total cost of approximately $11.26 million, inclusive of fees and expenses, the company said.
Extreme Networks is investigating the acquisition of Ruckus Networks from CommScope. The deal could be worth more than $1 billion (€857 million). No decision has been made yet, and Extreme may decide not to proceed with the acquisition. This is according to Bloomberg, based on sources. At the close of trading on Monday, Extreme Networks had a market value of approximately $2.1 billion. CommScope shares rose 2.9 percent to $19.04, giving the company a market value of approximately $4.2 billion.
digitalAudience today (13th January, 2026) announced the acquisition of Rayn.io, an AI-native audience intelligence platform recognised on the AI LUMAscape by LUMA Partners. The acquisition strengthens digitalAudience's data and identity infrastructure and supports its long-term strategy to deliver privacy-safe audience intelligence across European markets. Rayn.io has developed an AI-first technology focused on real-time audience intelligence and web-level signal analysis, designed to operate within the strict European privacy regulations.
Flixbus parent group Flix announces it has acquired a majority stake in Flibco, a European platform specializing in airport transfer services. The transaction marks the German group's structured entry into the airport shuttle segment and represents a further step in its strategy to integrate mobility offerings across Europe, complementing long-distance coach services with a high-frequency segment characterized by stable demand.
Update January 9, 2026: Although the acquisition amount has not been disclosed, we do know that Snowflake has purchased the ITOM platform Observe. Before the deal was finalized, Snowflake had already considered adopting Observe, the company told The Register. Now, the company can not only offer observability functionality to customers, but also apply it itself. However, the emphasis is on preventing downtime and the loss of important data for users of the Snowflake platform.
cities, transit agencies, and mobility providers gain access to a comprehensive, technologically advanced mobility offering from a single source - spanning vehicles, software, and operations. Data-driven analyses and simulations by ioki, for example, identify potential areas where autonomous vehicles such as the Holon urban can meaningfully complement and enhance public transport. Both the software and the vehicle are scalable and designed to work seamlessly together. This enables municipalities and operators to significantly reduce costs while simplifying the introduction of autonomous mobility services
The acquisition brings together two of Africa's leading fintech infrastructure companies. Flutterwave operates one of the continent's widest payments networks, while Mono, often described as the "Plaid for Africa," has built APIs that allow businesses to access bank data, initiate payments, and verify customers. Mono has raised about $17.5 million from investors, including Tiger Global, General Catalyst, and Target Global.
Cooking television show America's Test Kitchen has agreed to purchase recipe site Food52, which said it was forced to file bankruptcy after its lender unexpectedly swept cash from its bank accounts. The offer from America's Test Kitchen is worth $6.5 million and will gives Food52 a path out of Chapter 11 under new ownership. The stalking horse bid is subject to better offers should any materialize in the coming weeks.
Manus debuted in March 2025 and immediately pitched itself as a leap beyond generative AI chatbots, which it characterizes as best suited to summarizing information and answering questions. The outfit promotes its own services as enabling "wide research and context-aware reasoning to produce actionable results in the format you need." To illustrate that promise, Manus offers a scenario in which users ask its tech to select the best candidate for an job by evaluating job applications stored in a .ZIP file.
SoftBank Group will acquire digital infrastructure investor DigitalBridge Group in a deal valued at $4bn, the companies said on Monday, as the Japanese investment firm looks to deepen its AI-related portfolio. The acquisition would expand SoftBank's exposure to digital infrastructure as the Japanese conglomerate is positioning its portfolio to focus on artificial intelligence. SoftBank's billionaire founder Masayoshi Son is seeking to capitalize on surging demand for the computing capacity that underpins artificial intelligence applications.
The concept of vibe coding is not even a year old. Apple was forced, for the first time, to allow external payment links in the US. Apps became easier to build than ever. Kids now want to become developers to drive lambos. There are courses promising millions if you learn to build apps, turning app development into what drop shipping was a few years ago.
I was entirely on my own when I was 19. While I was enrolled in college, I worked full-time at night in the call center of a fintech company, Jack Henry & Associates. It was a gritty, hands-on role, but an exciting time to be with the company, which was growing quickly. I didn't have a typical college experience. I worked a lot so I could pay for my car and home. At work, I put my hand up any chance I could. I was never the smartest person, but I worked really hard and was always willing to figure out problems. Even if I'd never done something, I would figure it out. I couldn't afford to fail, personally or professionally.
