Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups.
This week we are looking at acquisitions of small startups, two new unicorns, wearable AI devices, and VCs who are supporting Kamala Harris. Let’s get into it.
Most interesting startup stories from the week
With the IPO market pretty much dead, we can’t help but track what’s going on with the other kind of exit: mergers and acquisitions. Even though they are not always the outcomes founders or investors were hoping for, we surely are hearing of more startups selling themselves.
Canva’s draws on Leonardo: Graphic design platform Canva has picked up generative AI-powered image creation startup Leonardo.ai, which raised nearly $39 million in venture capital since its founding two years ago. While we don’t know how much Canva paid for Leonardo, we do know that the design giant is busy building out its AI stack, and Leonardo is another piece of that puzzle. Read more
Airtable acquihires Dopt: There is a war for AI talent these days. That’s why collaboration company Airtable decided to buy such talent wholesale. This week, it acquired Dopt, a startup specializing in AI-powered onboarding. At its new home, the Dopt team will be tasked with developing various AI capabilities and will perhaps work on Airtable’s recently launched Airtable Cobuilder, an AI-driven app creation tool. Read more
Clutch grabs on to Plaiced: Four-year-old Clutch, a marketplace connecting creators with businesses, has raised $2 million from investors, including Precursor Ventures, and at one point had more than 200 creators on the platform and a 3,000-person waitlist. But the road eventually got tough. The startup restructured itself and laid off staff to reach profitability. Still, the startup’s co-founder decided that Clutch’s best path forward is to sell itself to online social network Plaiced. Read more
Bending Spoons scoops up WeTransfer: Bending Spoons, an Italy-based tech company known for acquiring well-known but struggling startups like Evernote and Meetup, has made another purchase — file transfer service WeTransfer. The 15-year-old WeTransfer was considering a public debut in 2021 but withdrew its plans when the IPO window closed in early 2022.