The SaaS Weekly is a weekly newsletter covering major SaaS news from Canada and around the globe.
Subscribe to S|W using the form at the bottom of this page to ensure you don’t miss out on the most important SaaS news every week!
ApplyBoard makes first acquisition, grabbing Panda Portal to train recruiters (BETAKIT)
ApplyBoard closed the deal earlier this month and has rebranded Panda Portal to TrainHub. With the purchase, the international student recruitment startup is expanding its capability to train educators and recruiters that will in turn attract more students to schools. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Thoma Bravo to buy Anaplan for $10.7 billion (WALL STREET JOURNAL)
Private-equity firm Thoma Bravo LP has struck a deal to buy Anaplan Inc. for $10.7 billion, the latest in a recent string of big leveraged buyouts.
Larger rounds, US dollars fuelled Canadian tech’s record-shattering 2021 (BETAKIT)
According to briefed.in’s annual tech report, Canadian startups raised a total of $14 billion across 698 deals through 2021. This represents a 218 percent increase in investment dollars and a 31 percent increase in deal volume from 2020. briefed.in’s CEO and founder, Rob Darling, described 2021 as an “amazing year” for the Canadian tech sector.
How SiriusXM bought and bungled a beloved podcast network (THE VERGE)
SiriusXM leapt into podcasts with a $325 million deal — insiders say it’s off to a messy start.
BetaKit Live: How NFTs might change music and gaming on March 29th (BETAKIT)
On Tuesday, March 29th at 4:00pm EDT, BetaKit Patreon supporters have a front-row seat to learn about how NFTs are impacting the world of entertainment – specifically the music and gaming industries.
Astronomer ready for its next mission after Datakin acquisition, $213M Series C (TECHCRUNCH)
The company began developing its modern data orchestration tools, powered by Apache Airflow, an open source platform for data engineering pipelines, that enables users to build, run and observe pipelines-as-code, and started driving that project in 2018.
RoofBundle secures $500,000, support from construction players to fuel launch of roofing software solution (BETAKIT)
During the past five years, Peters’ company, Peters Build, honed in on the roofing sector. “I just decided, look, we’ve got to focus on something here, right?” Peters told BetaKit in an interview. “We can’t just be everything for everybody.”
Uber reaches deal to list all New York City taxis on its app (WALL STREET JOURNAL)
The company has reached an agreement to list all New York City taxis on its app, an alliance that could ease the ride-hailing giant’s driver shortage and temper high fares while directing more business to cabdrivers, whose livelihoods were affected by the emergence of car-sharing apps and the pandemic.
Google reveals second cohort of Canadian cloud accelerator (BETAKIT)
Starting April 11, the group will undergo a virtual bootcamp that involves cloud mentorship, technical project support, workshops on product design and customer acquisition, as well as leadership development for cloud startup founders and leaders.
With $150 million USD in fresh funding, Montréal’s Talent.com is ready to take on Indeed worldwide (BETAKIT)
It has been a tumultuous few years for Montréal’s Talent.com. Founded in 2011, the job search platform had hit an inflection point in 2019: profitable, more or less bootstrapped, and with global scale – but still well behind the market leader, Indeed.
Cyber startup Island hits unicorn status 7 weeks after launching (CRUNCHBASE)
The company raised a $115 million Series B at a $1.3 billion valuation. The new round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from existing investors Stripes and Sequoia Capital. The company had just announced a $100 million Series A simultaneously with it coming out of stealth on Feb. 1.
Virtual Gurus closes $8.4 million amid US-driven demand for diversity-focused virtual assistants (BETAKIT)
Led by CEO Bobbie Racette, who is a Cree-Métis and LGBTQ+ woman, Virtual Gurus is on a mission to disrupt the virtual assistant market through curated matches and a talent marketplace that focuses on employing historically underrepresented individuals.
API marketplace RapidAPI nabs $150M to help companies bridge the developer gap (VENTURE BEAT)
API discovery and management platform RapidAPI has raised $150 million in a series D round of funding, as the burgeoning API economy continues apace.
