S|W: The SaaS Weekly – 1Password launches passkeys for businesses

The SaaS Weekly is a weekly newsletter covering major SaaS news from Canada and around the globe.

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Tehama returns as management team buys it out of bankruptcy (BETAKIT)

The founder and former executive team of Ottawa-based Tehama Inc. have restructured and bought the startup out of bankruptcy, renaming it Tehama Technologies Inc.

“Management undertook a pretty risky plan to acquire the debt to save the company and then led an effort to restructure it and acquire it, and now we’re pretty chuffed,” CEO Paul Vallée said.

Software company New Relic in talks to be sold
(THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)

New Relic, based in San Francisco, provides observability software, which allows app owners and websites to track the performance of their services.

Private-equity firms Francisco Partners and TPG are working together on a $5 billion-plus bid to acquire the software company since its stock has fallen to $77.01 from a 2021 high of around $120.

Mayor Tory’s departure, competing bids, and financial pressure on province and feds place Collision’s future in Canada in doubt (BETAKIT)

While major North American tech conference Collision has privately communicated intentions to extend its Toronto stay by at least another year, no official agreement has been reached, BetaKit has learned. Securing that agreement might be harder than in years past.

The conference has upped its ask to north of $40 million CAD for an extended three-year stay, as five other cities vie to host the conference.

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Insiders say Oracle is crushing morale at $28 billion acquisition Cerner by cutting over 3,000 workers, banning raises, and sidelining its former CEO (INSIDER)

Since buying health IT giant Cerner for about $28 billion, Oracle has halted raises and promotions and laid off thousands of employees in the unit, four current and former employees told Insider.

Between the cuts, wage freezes, and Oracle selling Cerner's buildings in Kansas City — where Cerner has historically been a major employer — morale within the Cerner workforce is "terrible," a former Cerner executive told Insider.

1Password launches passkeys for businesses as shift to passwordless picks up (BETAKIT)

1Password is bringing passkeys to businesses with a new standalone product named “Passage” as the Toronto-based startup picks up its pace in the shift to the next generation of authentication.

Procurement Startup Zip Announces $100 Million In New Funding At A $1.5 Billion Valuation (FORBES)

Zip, a San Francisco-based startup that helps businesses manage spending, announced a fresh round of capital today: a $100 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation.

Zip’s goals are to help the right teams at a business access the right pieces of the procurement process at the right times to make the process faster and more transparent.

How Inkbox CFO Louise Hucal handled the process of being acquired by a global corporation (BETAKIT)

Louise Hucal has worked in Fortune 500 companies and been involved in multiple M&A deals as an employee. However, pen maker Bic’s acquisition of temporary tattoo startup Inkbox felt more personal.

“We were not in the ‘be acquired’ head space at all at that point in time and were still comfortably funded by our venture partners," Hucal said.

Meta hit with record-breaking $1.3 billion fine over Facebook data transfers to the US (THE VERGE)

Meta has been hit with a record-breaking $1.3 billion fine (€1.2 billion) by EU data regulators, and ordered to stop transferring the Facebook data of EU citizens to the US. EU courts believe such data transfers expose EU citizens to privacy violations — a complaint that stems back to 2013 and revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden about US mass surveillance programs.

Québec attracted more venture funding than any other Canadian region in Q1 2023 (BETAKIT)

Despite seeing a decline in venture funding both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, Québec attracted more investment than any other Canadian region in the first quarter of 2023.

Snowflake in Talks to Buy Search Startup Neeva in AI Push
(THE INFORMATION)

Database software provider Snowflake has been in advanced talks to acquire Neeva, a search startup founded by former top Google ad tech executive Sridhar Ramaswamy.

Neeva primarily sells an ad-free web-search app for consumers, but it developed software that combines search with large-language models, which are trained on text to understand the nuances of speech and writing.

Alberta’s tech sector remained resilient in first quarter of 2023 (BETAKIT)

According to briefed.in’s latest report, startups in Alberta raised $225.5 million in the first quarter of 2023. This represents a 30 percent increase in investment from the previous quarter and a 10 percent increase year-over-year.

Twitter makes its first acquisition with a recruiting startup (AXIOS)

Twitter appears to have made its first deal of the Elon Musk era: buying a job-matching tech startup called Laskie.

This is the company’s first known acquisition under Musk’s leadership, as well as a transaction that helps fulfill the billionaire's aspirations to turn Twitter into a "super-app" that offers users multiple functions — including payments.

Withe raises $1.1 million in mission to address hospitality hiring challenges (BETAKIT)

Vancouver-based Withe has raised $1.1 million USD in all-equity, pre-seed funding, to support hospitality brands in meeting their hiring needs through its digital recruitment platform.