Google LLC today completed its acquisition of smartwatch maker Fitbit Inc. despite an ongoing antitrust investigation into the deal. The $2.1 billion acquisition deal was announced in November 2019, when the announcement immediately caused a backlash. Some Fitbit users were reported to be ditching their devices over data privacy concerns. Founded in 2007, Fitbit offers a ...

Despite the turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the U.S. venture capital industry posted new records for the year, according to the just-released PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor fourth-quarter 2020 report. For the year, the sector hit record highs in total exit value, deal value and capital raised by venture capital funds. Exit value was ...

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency today issued a warning concerning several recent cyberattacks targeting various cloud services. The report states that threat actors are using phishing and other vectors to exploit poor cybersecurity hygiene practices within a victim’s cloud services configuration. The attacks are said to have occurred when employees ...

Cryptocurrency custodian startup Anchorage Hold LLC has obtained conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to become a federally chartered bank. Now formally known as Anchorage Digital Bank National Association, Anchorage is the first cryptocurrency company to receive a federal banking charter, a notable milestone in the history of cryptocurrency ...

Shares in online payments company Affirm Holdings Inc. nearly doubled on their public debut on the Nasdaq today as the market for initial public offerings in 2021 appears to be as hot as it was in 2020. Affirm operates in the “buy now, pay later” short-term finance market, a segment of the financial services industry that has ...

Security intelligence firm LogRhythm Inc. announced today it has acquired threat detection startup MistNet.IO Inc. for an undisclosed price. Founded in 2016, MistNet offers a security threat detection and prevention platform that is designed to minimize exposure to cybersecurity risks. The company’s main offering, TensorMist-AI, constructs a geodistributed, meshed data pipeline by combining scale-out data management with ...

A security certificate issued by Mimecast Services Ltd. that’s used to authenticate some of the company’s products with Microsoft Corp. 365 Exchange Web Services has been hacked. The certificate, issued to some Mimecast customers to authenticate Mimecast Sync and Recover, Continuity Monitor and IEP products, was targeted by a “sophisticated threat actor” the company said ...

Information management platform startup M-Files Inc. revealed today that it has raised $80 million in new funding in a round led by Bregal Milestone and including Partech, Tesi and Draper Esprit. Founded in 2001, M-Files offers a next-generation intelligent information management platform that is designed to assist businesses to find and use information more effectively. Using an intelligent, ...

Visa Inc. today abandoned its $5.7 billion acquisition of financial technology startup Plaid Financial Inc. following a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice challenging the deal on antitrust grounds. The deal was announced in January 2020 and the Justice Department was first reported to be investigating the acquisition in October. The probe resulted in the ...

The United Nations has suffered a data breach that exposed the details of more than 100,000 U.N. Environmental Program employees, but in a twist, the breach was uncovered by ethical hackers. The discovery was made and revealed today by ethical hacking and security research group Sakura Samurai, which probed various U.N. databases after discovering that ...