Reuters News
Nestle (NESN.S) has acquired a minority stake in U.S. healthy ready meals group Freshly, as the Swiss food giant seeks to hone its distribution network in a rapidly changing U.S. market, Reuters reported.
Blue Apron Holdings Inc said on Monday it expected its initial public offering to be priced at $15 to $17 per share, giving the biggest U.S. meal kit delivery company a valuation as high as $3.18 billion.
In the boreal forests and on the remote prairies of Alberta, a handful of technology companies are running pilot projects they hope will end a two-decade drought in innovation and stem the exodus of top global energy firms from Canada's oil sands, Reuters reported. They are searching for a breakthrough that will cut the cost of pumping the tar-like oil from the country's vast underground bitumen reservoirs and better compete with the booming shale industry in the United States. If they fail, a bigger chunk of the world's third-largest oil reserves will stay in the ground. Canada's oil sands sector has become one of the biggest victims of the global oil price crash that began in 2014 when top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia flooded the market with cheap crude to drive out high cost competitors.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) said on Friday it would buy online men's fashion retailer Bonobos Inc for $310 million, in its fourth e-commerce deal in under a year, as it seeks to bridge the gap with e-commerce leader Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O).
Chinese bike-sharing start-up Mobike said it has raised $600 million in a financing round led by Tencent Holdings Ltd, its biggest financing round to date as it seeks to expand aggressively.
Dubai-based ride hailing firm Careem will step up expansion into new markets after raising $150 million from investors, including German carmaker Daimler and Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding, Reuters reported.
Slack Technologies Inc, a corporate messaging and collaboration software startup, has received inquiries about a potential takeover from technology companies including Amazon.com Inc, Reuters reported, citing a Bloomberg story. A deal could value the company at least US$9 billion. San Francisco-based Slack has raised more than US$500 million from venture capitalists. It was founded in 2014 by CEO Stewart Butterfield, a Canadian entrepreneur, and has an office in Vancouver.
U.S. exchange group Nasdaq Inc has joined a 7 million-euro ($7.9 million) investment round in Stratumn, which helps companies develop applications using blockchain technology, the Paris-based startup said last Thursday.
The Bancor token project raised about $147 million on Monday in an initial coin offering, making it the second-largest fundraising campaign in the blockchain industry, according to the Bancor website, Reuters reported.
Canada launched a fast-track visa program for highly-skilled workers, as it seeks to take advantage of a tougher immigration environment in the United States, Reuters reported. The move comes at a critical time for Canadian technology companies, who are looking to lure top global talent who otherwise flock to Silicon Valley. "In a world where people are becoming more and more inward, where there is a rise in populism, there is a lot of Islamophobia, a lot of xenophobia, there's a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment, Canada is uniquely positioned," Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said.