The SaaS Weekly is a weekly newsletter covering major SaaS news from Canada and around the globe.
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Shopify COO Harley Finkelstein joins CBC board of directors(BETAKIT)
Finkelstein is also a CBC Next Gen Den dragon.
Oracle clinches a $1.56 billion deal to buy Australia’s Aconex (BLOOMBERG)
Based in Melbourne, Aconex’s cloud-based software allows teams working on building projects to collaborate and share documents. This marks Oracle’s second acquisition of a cloud-based construction software maker so far.
FindBob raises $1.6 million to help insurance firms find their next generation of talent (BETAKIT)
The startup aims to solve a big problem in the insurance and financial services industry: a lack of a succession plan.
Alibaba launches first cloud data centre in India (VCCIRCLE)
Beyond offering standard cloud products, India-based customers will now get access to elastic computing, database, storage and content delivery, networking, analytics and big data, containers, middleware, and security.
Amazon did a lot of funky stuff this year and it’s paying off (TECHCRUNCH)
Jeff Bezos’ former online bookstore dumped $13.7 billion to buy a bunch of grocery stores, that speaker you talk to in your living room that Amazon makes is really popular, and a bunch of server farms Amazon runs generate more than $10 billion in annual revenue.
The slow motion SaaS crash(CRUNCHBASE)
A cursory glance at tech headlines may have you believe that the SaaS business is humming along nicely. However, some are questioning that assumption by looking deeper into the market’s younger companies and their prospects in an increasingly competitive field.
Financeit receives investment from Goldman Sachs to acquire home improvement software company Centah (BETAKIT)
This investment makes Goldman Sachs a majority owner in the company.
Convercent raises $25M to keep companies out of ethical quandaries (TECHCRUNCH)
Convercent, a company that provides ethics and compliance software to businesses, raised the funds from Rho Ventures, with participation from Sapphire Ventures and Tola Capital.
Peel-Works raises $2 million from Inventus, IDG Ventures (MINT)
The big data analytics firm will expand its offerings, hire senior managers, and ramp up product development.
Xage emerges from stealth with a blockchain-based IoT security solution (TECHCRUNCH)
Xage is building a security fabric for IoT, which takes blockchain and synthesizes it with other capabilities to create a secure environment for devices to operate.
Create more value than you capture: An oral history of Toronto product development S(BETAKIT)
BetaKit’s first #longform piece explores the evolution of Toronto tech over the last 15 years.
