Centerbridge weighs $3 billion sale of cloud IT firm Ahead
Private equity firm Centerbridge Partners is preparing a sale of Ahead Inc in a deal that could value the enterprise cloud solutions provider at more than $3 billion including debt, reports Reuters.
Chicago-based Ahead is expected to generate $2.5 billion in revenue this year, up from $2.2 billion in 2021, with annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of more than $230 million, the sources added.
Ahead has expanded its services capabilities in enterprise cloud infrastructure management, monitoring and analytics, serving large enterprises including Lowe’s Companies and Cisco Systems.
Brazilian freight marketplace Frete.com buys transportation software provider
Brazilian freight marketplace Frete.com has completed its first acquisition, of transportation management software provider InterSite, reports Reuters. Focused on managing transportation of agricultural commodities, InterSite has around 10,000 clients.
Frete.com, which has become an unicorn in its latest funding round, is buying a majority stake in InterSite in a cash and stock deal. The value and exact stake were not disclosed. InterSite founders Edilmar Alves and Sanir Bacarin will continue managing the company independently. InterSite issues documents for around 4 million truck trips a year, which generate around 11 billion reais in freight payments.
Shopping platform Whatnot valued at nearly $4 billion after latest fund raise
Whatnot raised $260 million in a funding round led by DST Global and Alphabet Inc’s independent growth fund CapitalG on Thursday, valuing the livestreaming shopping platform at $3.7 billion, reports Reuters.
The series D fund-raise also saw participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and YC Continuity and comes ten months after the previous round when it was valued at $1.5 billion.
Whatnot’s move to raise capital comes amid a broader sell-off in tech stocks over the past few months, which is likely to pressure the valuations of private companies.
However, investors such as Tiger Global and Andreessen Horowitz continue to pour money into tech companies and bet on a recovery in valuations.
Growth in e-commerce since the COVID-19 pandemic as well as supply chain bottlenecks has led to a demand for similar platforms.
Whatnot plans to use the fresh capital to launch additional categories for collectors and enthusiasts and double down on expansion into diecast cars, stamps and action figures.
Founded in 2019, the U.S. marketplace saw its revenue grow over 20 times year-over-year and more than tripled its monthly sales so far in 2022, according to a company statement.
Rogers to invest C$10 billion in AI
Rogers Communications will invest C$10 billion ($7.74 billion) over the next three years in Artificial Intelligence (AI), and more testing and oversight, just weeks after the company reported network issues that caused widespread disruptions across the country.
Chief Executive Officer Tony Staffieri said the Canadian telecom operator has made progress on a formal agreement between carriers to switch 911 calls to each other’s networks automatically – even in the event of an outage on any carrier’s network. Staffieri said that the company is physically separating wireless and internet services to create an ‘always on’ network – to help make sure the customers don’t experience an outage with both cellular and internet services again.
Earlier this month, the operator that has about 10 million wireless subscribers and 2.25 million retail internet subscribers, suffered a glitch that lasted nearly 19 hours, disrupting services from flights to banking and emergency 911 calls.