New owners to cut 75% of WeTransfer staff after acquisition

Ivan Mehta, reporting for Techcrunch:

Italy-based app company Bending Spoons, which owns Evernote and Meetup, is planning to lay off 75% of the staff of file transfer service WeTransfer, TechCrunch has learned. Bending Spoons acquired the Dutch company in July for an undisclosed amount.

The company confirmed the plans for the WeTransfer layoff to TechCrunch. The staff that is being let go will be informed after Bending Spoons goes through local regulations in different countries regarding lay offs. Dutch media reported that WeTransfer has over 350 employees.

WeTransfer was one of my favorite sites since its launch, and they did a great job making quick file-sharing bearable. I had used its premium features extensively during my Filmingo days, but it did feel like it was losing the plot in the last few years.

That said, imagine reading the news that 75% of your company will be let go and whether that includes you will not be known for another few days… I feel for the staff there.

September 9, 2024 ✚ Permalink

Amazon buys MX Player

Manish Singh, reporting for Techcrunch:

The two firms reached a definitive agreement for the deal on Wednesday evening, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The deal values MX Player at less than $100 million, far short of the $500 million valuation at which the streamer raised its last capital, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the companies are yet to publicly comment on the deal, told TechCrunch.

Amazon is acquiring some assets of MX Player, but not the entire firm, which also counts Tencent among its backers.

MX Player has some of the most obscure web-series content that I’ve seen, but also has some good hits like Ek thi Begum, Aani Kay Hava, Pandu, Indori Ishq, etc. From what I’ve seen, MX Player is much more popular in the semi-urban and rural towns than in the metros, so I can see why Amazon was interested in the deal.

June 6, 2024 ✚ Permalink

GoDaddy is Retiring the Media Temple Brand

I missed this news last month:

For the past 24 years, Media Temple dedicated itself to serving the needs of the digital creative community. Thus, our mantra—for creatives, by creatives.  This mantra led to our decision that now is the time to retire the Media Temple brand and fully integrate into GoDaddy.

GoDaddy acquired Media Temple back in 2013, so props to them for keeping the brand alive all these years. Media Temple was not only one of the best places to host your websites before the acquisition, but also one of the coolest brands to be a part of. Just having the (mt) branding on your website was like a stamp that you were serious about your website.

It’s a shame that they had to go with GoDaddy — I still think GoDaddy is one of the scummiest companies around.

January 18, 2023 ✚ Permalink

Freepik Acquires Iconfinder

The Freepik Company, known for its projects like Freepik, Wepik, Flaticon and Slidesgo, has announced the acquisition of Iconfinder.

Speaking about the acquisition, Martin LeBlanc — Founder & CEO of Iconfinder, writes:

For now, Iconfinder will stay Iconfinder, and Flaticon will stay Flaticon. My role will transition into the Head of icons, and we’ll start setting up a direction, merging the Iconfinder and Flaticon teams, and making gradual changes. Our goal is to learn from each other what we are best at and apply the practices and approaches to build the world’s best icon site, helping people around the world make beautiful designs faster.

Freepik has been a tremendous resource for designers of any kind, and similarly, Iconfinder’s vast collection of icons has been a personal favorite of mine for many years. I hope to see them collectively improve both the projects down the line.

October 4, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Adobe set to acquire Figma for $20 billion

Adobe press release:

Today, Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Figma, a leading web-first collaborative design platform, for approximately $20 billion in cash and stock. The combination of Adobe and Figma will usher in a new era of collaborative creativity.

Together, Adobe and Figma will reimagine the future of creativity and productivity, accelerate creativity on the web, advance product design and inspire global communities of creators, designers and developers. The combined company will have a massive, fast-growing market opportunity and capabilities to drive significant value for customers, shareholders and the industry.

Dylan Field, writing on the Figma blog, says:

Today, we’re announcing that Figma has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Adobe. This has been in the works over the past few months and I’m so excited to finally share this news with the world.

Ten years ago, Evan and I set out on a journey to make design accessible to all. Looking back, I’m proud to say we’ve made progress through introducing Figma to designers of all ages, geographies and levels of experience.

He goes on to say,

There is a huge opportunity for us to accelerate the growth and innovation of the Figma platform with access to Adobe’s technology, expertise and resources in the creative space. For example, we will have the opportunity to incorporate their expertise in imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D and font technology to the Figma platform. Additionally, we will have the opportunity to reimagine what the best creative tools could look like within the Figma technology stack.

And clarifies that,

Adobe is deeply committed to keeping Figma operating autonomously and I will continue to serve as CEO, reporting to David Wadhwani.

Figma has gone on to become an immensely popular design tool in the last few years, and designers are noticeably disappointed about this news.

There’s no doubt that this is a big win for Adobe, and I’m very curious how much Figma changes going forward. My bet is that it gets worse.

September 15, 2022 ✚ Permalink

WP Engine Acquires Delicious Brains Plugins

WP Engine, a popular managed WordPress hosting services company, has today announced the acquisition of 5 WordPress plugins from Delicious Brains.

The plugins have a total installed base of approximately 4 million users and are widely adopted by WP Engine’s customers. The acquired software includes Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), WP Migrate, WP Offload Media, WP Offload SES, and Better Search Replace.

Over the last few years, WP Engine has been snapping up a number of products, aiming to level up their offering from developers. This includes Flywheel and Local, as well as StudioPress and the Genesis framework. Interestingly, it was exactly a year ago on June 2nd, 2021 that Elliot Condon — the original developer of Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) announced that Delicious Brains had acquired the plugin from them.

I’m currently using a number of these WordPress plugins on many of my websites, so I’m curious to see where WP Engine takes them.

Also read: The announcement by Delicious Brains.

June 2, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Nvidia Quietly Prepares to Abandon $40 Billion Arm Bid

Ian King, Giles Turner, and Peter Elstrom reporting for Bloomberg:

Nvidia Corp. is quietly preparing to abandon its purchase of Arm Ltd. from SoftBank Group Corp. after making little to no progress in winning approval for the $40 billion chip deal, according to people familiar with the matter.

Nvidia has told partners that it doesn’t expect the transaction to close, according to one person, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. SoftBank, meanwhile, is stepping up preparations for an Arm initial public offering as an alternative to the Nvidia takeover, another person said.

Someone at Intel is surely breathing a sigh of relief.

January 26, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 Billion

Tom Warren, writing on The Verge:

Microsoft is acquiring Activision, the troubled publisher of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Diablo. The deal will value Activision at $68.7 billion, far in excess of the $26 billion Microsoft paid to acquire LinkedIn in 2016. It’s Microsoft’s biggest push into gaming, and the company says it will be the “third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony” once the deal closes.

One has to wonder how Microsoft plans to deal with all the issues & controversies that have plagued Activision Blizzard in recent times.

January 18, 2022 ✚ Permalink