Model N, a platform used by companies such as Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and AMD to automate decisions related to pricing, incentives, and compliance, is going private in a $1.25 billion deal.
Vista Equity Partners is doling out $30 per share in the all-cash transaction, representing a 12% premium on Friday’s closing price, and 16% on its 30-day average.
Founded in 1999, Model N’s software integrates with various data sources and internal systems to help companies analyze trends, pricing efficacy, market demand, and more.
The platform is typically used in industries such as pharmaceuticals and life sciences, where there may be complex pricing structures, and where regulatory or market changes can impact business.
However, its valuation has generally hovered below the $1 billion market for the past six months, sparking Vista Equity Partners into action today.
In its previous price list, published in 2019, the highest payouts that Crowdfense was offering were $3 million for Android and iOS zero-days.
In a report last month, Google said it saw hackers use 97 zero-day vulnerabilities in the wild in 2023.
Spyware vendors, which often work with zero-day brokers, were responsible for 75 percent of zero-days targeting Google products and Android, according to the company.
Zero-day brokers, as well as spyware companies like NSO Group and Hacking Team have often been criticized for selling its products to unsavory governments.
“All the companies and governments directly sanctioned by the USA are excluded.”At least one company, spyware consortium Intellexa, is on Crowdfense’s particular blocklist.
Apple updated its App Store rules Friday to allow emulators for retro console games globally with an option for downloading titles.
Apple’s update will probably encourage some of those developers to bring their emulators to the App Store.
With Apple having to tweak App Store rules because of regulations, these kinds of games would provide another revenue stream for the company.
Plus, it updated App Store rules at that time to support in-app purchases for mini-games and AI chatbots.
“Apps may offer certain software that is not embedded in the binary, specifically HTML5 mini apps and mini-games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins.
Despite its similarities, Instagram Threads is no X.
The traffic surge drove #earthquake to the top of X’s Trends section, followed by other areas of impact, like “East Coast,” “Long Island,” “Philly,” “Manhattan” and “Brooklyn.” Meanwhile, earthquake-related terms didn’t register on Threads’ trends section until closer to 2 p.m.
That’s not to say people weren’t discussing the earthquake on Threads — many were.
Around 1 p.m. on Friday, TechCrunch reached out to Instagram to ask why the earthquake didn’t make it into Threads’ top trends.
The phone kept buzzing, and there was, ‘earthquake, earthquake, earthquake.
Well-known startup accelerator Y Combinator held one of its two yearly demo day events this week, showcasing hundreds of startups that recently went through its program.
Judging from our coverage of the two-day event, TechCrunch found lots to like in the presenting companies.
There was lots more than just AI on display, so for today’s TechCrunch Minute I compiled a few trends and vibes from the shindig for your enjoyment.
Accelerators play an important role in the startup world, giving founders early capital and advice as they get off the ground.
Y Combinator competes with Techstars and other platforms globally.
Slides in this deckQueerie shared its full, unredacted, 13-slide pitch deck with TechCrunch.
Cover slide Cover slide part 2 Mission slide Problem slide Solution slide Market size slide How it works slide Traction slide Competition slide Team slide Ask and Use of Funds slide 6-year (!)
Slides in a pitch deck should help an investor decide to invest.
The full pitch deckIf you want your own pitch deck teardown featured on TechCrunch, here’s more information.
Also, check out all our Pitch Deck Teardowns all collected in one handy place for you!
Tesla is dropping prices of unsold Model Y SUVs in the U.S. by thousands of dollars in an attempt to clear out an unprecedented backlog of inventory.
The discounts come as Tesla once again made far more vehicles than it sold in the last quarter.
The company built 433,371 vehicles in the first quarter but only shipped 386,810, likely adding more than 40,000 EVs to its inventory glut.
It announced a $1,000 price hike was coming to the Model Y, its most popular vehicle, on April 1.
He has largely blamed the struggle on high interest rates, all while his company dramatically cut prices on the Model Y and Model 3 throughout 2023.
Bitkraft Ventures — a games investor based out of Denver, Colorado, but with European founders — has raised its third fund, coming in at $275 million.
The fund will make seed and Series A investments in gaming studios, and platforms to support game production.
The moves comes at a time when games investments have actually declined 72 per cent year on year, according to a recent Pitchbook report.
Founded by games industry veteran Jens Hilgers, Bitkraft has over 130 companies in its portfolio, and more than $1 billion in assets under management.
Perhaps the best way of positioning Bitkraft is to compare it to Play Ventures in Singapore which has raised $222.9M across 4 funds, but also invests across several types games platforms.
Oculus’ Rift prototype felt like just such a device when it first crossed my radar more than a decade ago.
“After games, we’re going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences.
Should anyone doubt the company’s commitment to the concept, it rebranded itself as “Meta”, killing off the Oculus brand the same afternoon.
In spite of the $500 billion rebrand, Zuckerberg and co. never did a particularly good job defining the metaverse.
That’s roughly 21x the price it paid for Oculus, not adjusting for inflation.
X warns that you might lose followers as it does another bot sweepX is warning users they may see a reduction in their follower counts as the company attempts to clear the network of some spammers and bots in a large sweep.
Today, we're kicking off a significant, proactive initiative to eliminate accounts that violate our Rules against platform manipulation and spam.
While we aim for accuracy in the accounts we remove, we're casting a wide net to ensure X remains secure and free of bots.
But these days, Musk is touting how X is seeing record traffic, without clarifying if his own numbers include bots and spam.
X also shared a link to a form where users inadvertently affected by the bot sweep could appeal.
