Private equity buyers continue to take advantage of perceived bargains among public martech vendors. The latest deal with a $4.6 billion purchase of event management software vendor Cvent by Blackstone. Cvent has changed hands more often than a 2002 Toyota, originally going public in 2013, then being purchased by Vista Equity Partners in 2016, and going public again in 2021.
The head-spinning pace of development in the generative AI space continues. Latest news is Google Cloud offering API access to its foundation AI models, which will enable developers to easily embed them within their own products. Separately, Google announced it is offering test versions of AI-based features such as image generation, copywriting, and categorization in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and other productivity tools.
The French martech industry is a bit separate from the rest of the world. Paris-based Splio offers marketing automation and personalization under the banner of “Individuation”, with 400+ retailers as clients. They just bought Tinyclues, a leading French AI-based prediction engine.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.