Latest news with #acquihire
Reuters
13-06-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Meta's $14.8 billion Scale AI deal latest test of AI partnerships
June 13 (Reuters) - Facebook owner Meta's (META.O), opens new tab $14.8 billion investment in Scale AI and hiring of the data-labeling startup's CEO will test how the Trump administration views so-called acquihire deals, which some have criticized as an attempt to evade regulatory scrutiny. The deal, announced on Thursday, was Meta's second-largest . It gives the owner of Facebook a 49% nonvoting stake in Scale AI, which uses gig workers to manually label data and includes among its customers Meta competitors Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and ChatGPT creator OpenAI. Unlike an acquisition or a transaction that would give Meta a controlling stake, the deal does not require a review by U.S. antitrust regulators. However, they could probe the deal if they believe it was structured to avoid those requirements or harm competition. The deal appeared to be structured to avoid potential pitfalls, such as cutting off competitors' access to Scale's services or giving Meta an inside view into rivals' operations - though Reuters exclusively reported on Friday that Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google has decided to sever ties with Scale in light of Meta's stake, and other customers are looking at taking a step back. In a statement, a Scale AI spokesperson said its business, which spans work with major companies and governments, remains strong, as it is committed to protecting customer data. The company declined to comment on specifics with Google. Alexandr Wang, Scale's 28-year-old CEO who is coming to Meta as part of the deal, will remain on Scale's board but will have appropriate restrictions placed around his access to information, two sources familiar with the move confirmed. Large tech companies likely perceive the regulatory environment for AI partnerships as easier to navigate under President Donald Trump than under former President Joe Biden, said William Kovacic, director of the competition law center at George Washington University. Trump's antitrust enforcers have said they do not want to regulate how AI develops, but have also displayed a suspicion of large tech platforms, he added. "That would lead me to think they will keep looking carefully at what the firms do. It does not necessarily dictate that they will intervene in a way that would discourage the relationships," Kovacic said. Federal Trade Commission probes into past "aquihire" deals appear to be at a standstill. Under the Biden administration, the FTC opened inquiries into Amazon's (AMZN.O), opens new tab deal to hire top executives and researchers from AI startup Adept, and Microsoft's $650 million deal with Inflection AI. The latter allowed Microsoft to use Inflection's models and hire most of the startup's staff, including its co-founders. Amazon's deal closed without further action from the regulator, a source familiar with the matter confirmed. And, more than a year after its initial inquiry, the FTC has so far taken no enforcement action against Microsoft over Inflection, though a larger probe over practices at the software giant is ongoing. A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment on Friday. David Olson, a professor who teaches antitrust law at Boston College Law School, said it was smart of Meta to take a minority nonvoting stake. "I think that does give them a lot of protection if someone comes after them," he said, adding that it was still possible that the FTC would want to review the agreement. The Meta deal has its skeptics. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts who is probing, said Meta's investment should be scrutinized. 'Meta can call this deal whatever it wants - but if it violates federal law because it unlawfully squashes competition or makes it easier for Meta to illegally dominate, antitrust enforcers should investigate and block it," she said in a statement on Friday. While Meta faces its own monopoly lawsuit by the FTC, it remains to be seen whether the agency will have any questions about its Scale investment. The U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust division, led by former JD Vance adviser Gail Slater, recently started looking into whether Google's partnership with chatbot creator was designed to evade antitrust review, Bloomberg News reported. The DOJ is separately seeking to make Google give it advance notice of new AI investments as part of a proposal to curb the company's dominance in online search.
Globe and Mail
07-06-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Canadian chip company Untether AI winding down operations
Promising Canadian chip startup Untether AI Corp. is winding down after failing to raise money earlier this year, and its engineering employees will be transferred to American company Advanced Micro Devices AMD-T. The arrangement is known as an 'acquihire,' in which one company strikes a deal with another to gain access to talent instead of products or services. Toronto-based Untether designed computer chips for artificial intelligence applications such as autonomous vehicles, robots and drones, and said its products were far more energy efficient than others on the market. But the company pivoted too late to the hardware market for powering generative AI applications, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, according to two sources familiar with the matter, and struggled to compete against the dominance of Nvidia Corp. NVDA-T in the chip market. Economic uncertainty owing to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff agenda contributed to difficulties raising new funds from investors this year, one of the sources said. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the sources because they are not authorized to discuss the matter. Untether said in a statement on its website Thursday that it had entered into a 'strategic agreement' with chipmaker AMD, which is based in California. 'While today marks the end of Untether AI's journey, we are proud of the pioneering research that underpinned our work,' the statement read. The company added it will no longer supply or support its hardware and software products. AMD said in a statement to trade publication CRN that it is acquiring 'a talented team of AI hardware and software engineers' from Untether. One source said the value of the deal would likely be less than US$100-million depending on how many employees agree to join AMD. The source added that Meta Platforms Inc., which is working on custom chips for AI applications, was also in talks with Untether. It is not clear what will happen to Untether's intellectual property, which is not part of the transaction, but the source said it could be sold separately. Neither Untether nor AMD immediately replied to a request for comment. From 2024: Toronto's Untether straps in for growth selling AI chips - but can it avoid getting crushed by Nvidia? Chris Walker, Untether's chief executive, left the company in May, according to his LinkedIn profile. He did not reply to The Globe and Mail. Untether was founded in 2018 and received funding from Intel Capital, Radical Ventures, GM Ventures and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The company has raised around $150-million. That means given the potential value of the deal, investors are likely not recouping the total amount they invested. However, losses will depend on when investors first put money into Untether. The company's products were built on the research of co-founder and former University of Toronto professor Martin Snelgrove, who pioneered a different computer chip architecture. The dominant approach to chip-making has followed a design laid out by mathematician and physicist John von Neumann in 1945, but that design wastes a lot of energy shuttling data around. Untether cut the distance data must travel by placing memory and processing units side-by-side on the hardware. Untether pursued the self-driving vehicle market and other systems that use a form of AI know as computer vision, which involves detecting and interpreting objects in videos and images. But the AI world changed with the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, as companies became obsessed with generative AI and chatbots. Nvidia became the most valuable publicly traded company in the world as large tech firms scrambled to purchase chips to install inside data centres for training AI models. Untether aimed to compete with Nvidia in the much larger market for powering AI inference, the term for using an AI model after it is built, such as asking a question of ChatGPT. Independent tests gave Untether's products high marks. MLCommons, an industry and academic consortium that benchmarks AI systems, found last year that one of Untether's chips was six times more energy efficient than competing products, and with lower latency, in one testing category. But Untether's push into the market for chips housed in data centres for generative AI may have come too late, especially given Nvidia's scale and reputation. The California-based company is worth close to US$3.5-trillion.
Forbes
30-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Wealthsimple Acquires Plenty Team To Improve Family Finance
Plenty cofounders Emily Luk and Channing Allen now part of the Wealthsimple team. In April 2025, Wealthsimple made a quiet but strategic acqui-hire, bringing on the entire team from Plenty, a U.S.-based fintech startup focused on financial planning for couples. While the Plenty platform shut down shortly after, the acquisition was never about the product—it was about people. By integrating a team with deep insight into modern household finances, the Wealthsimple Plenty acquisition exemplifies a different way a startup can continue its work after it closes its doors. When fintech firms acquire early-stage startups, it is sometimes not for the tech or customer base, but for the talent and vision. Known as acqui-hires, these deals offer a faster way to onboard cohesive teams with proven domain expertise. For Wealthsimple, the Plenty acquisition wasn't about IP. It was about acquiring a team uniquely attuned to the financial needs of modern couples. Acqui-hires are not uncommon in a competitive tech hiring environment. In these scenarios, cultural fit can outweigh existing traction or product-market fit. A majority (65%) of acquirers report that cultural issues hinder their ability to realize the full value of a deal. 'We immediately saw a natural alignment between Plenty and Wealthsimple,' said Chris Arsenault, founder of Inovia Capital, an investor in both companies. 'This wasn't just strategic—it was a win-win for the over 3 million Canadians using Wealthsimple.' Tim Kalimov, Wealthsimple's VP of product, echoed that sentiment, 'The team at Plenty shares our belief that financial services should be simple, smart, and accessible. They've built an impressive product that helps families take control of their financial lives—something we care deeply about.' Plenty wasn't just another budgeting tool—it was purpose-built to address a reality that many fintechs had overlooked: Couples manage money together, but often with a mix of joint and individual priorities. 'What does a truly multiplayer experience look like for today's modern couples, across saving, investing, budgeting, and tracking?' asked co-founder Emily Luk. That was the question Plenty set out to answer. The platform had three core pillars: automated goal-based financial planning, real-time budgeting and savings tracking, and a 'Mine, Yours, Ours' model for account visibility. This model resonated with millennial and Gen Z users who expect both transparency and autonomy in managing shared finances. It also filled a gap in Wealthsimple's roadmap, which has increasingly focused on household financial tools, such as joint accounts, spousal Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs), and Registered Education Savings Plans (RESPs). 'The future of financial planning will be powered by both smart technology and real human connection,' said Kalimov. 'The Plenty team's experience will help us design smarter, more connected products that reflect how people actually manage money together.' While the product vision aligned, the acquisition hinged on something more profound: culture. 'It's pretty rare for companies to meet with such a similar mission and culture,' said Luk. 'We saw a chance to accelerate our roadmap and reach a scale of millions, while staying true to our original vision.' Introduced by their mutual investor, the two companies began with informal discussions about their products. Over time, those discussions evolved into a shared understanding of how financial services should be built: with empathy, flexibility, and a clear comprehension of customer behavior. Plenty's product officially shut down in May 2025. Its users were referred to alternative tools, though many now need multiple platforms to match the functionality that Plenty offered in one. Meanwhile, team members—including Luk and co-founder and husband Channing Allen—joined Wealthsimple full-time, with Luk joining the product team and Allen leading engineering contributions. The team remains U.S.-based but is now building for the Canadian market. 'This acquisition gave us the opportunity to take our product vision and implement it with the resources and reach we simply didn't have as a startup,' said Luk. 'It's not the end of our mission—it's a new chapter of scale.' The Wealthsimple Plenty acquisition illustrates how acqui-hires can help some startups exit. As customer needs grow more nuanced, especially around shared financial decision-making, companies are realizing they can't always build fast enough from within. Strategic acqui-hires offer a way to absorb experience, user research, and design intelligence that would take years to replicate. For Wealthsimple, it's a step toward becoming the default financial platform for Canadian families. For Plenty, it's a chance to expand their mission—and impact—on a national scale. And for the broader fintech ecosystem, the deal shows what's possible when acquisitions are built around more than spreadsheets. As Luk put it, 'It would've taken us years to reach a point where we could impact millions. This deal lets us do that immediately.' Acqui-hires, when rooted in mission alignment and product fit, are becoming more than a talent strategy—they're a growth strategy. The Wealthsimple Plenty acquisition is a prime example of how fintechs can build faster and smarter by investing in people, not just platforms.
