Deals in Brief

Raytheon Technologies, an aircraft manufacturing company, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Blue Canyon Technologies, a provider of small satellites and spacecraft systems components. Both the companies are based in the US.

The deal is expected to close by early 2021 and is subject to the completion of customary conditions and regulatory approvals.

Following the deal completion, Blue Canyon Technologies will report into Raytheon Intelligence & Space.

SoftBank entered the rental e-scooter market for the first time, leading a venture financing round in German micro-mobility startup Tier. 

Existing investors also participated in the Series C round. The company will use the funding to grow its presence in Europe and expand into new markets.

Ocado, a UK-based online supermarket company, has announced plans to acquire Haddington Dynamics, an advanced R&D company focused on low-cost, ultra-precision motion control for robotics, for $25m.

The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals, but Ocado expects it to be completed in 2020. It is geared towards Ocado entering new robotics markets.

Arable Labs, an agricultural business intelligence solution founded on in-field measurements, has secured $20m in a Series B funding led by Prelude Ventures.

Nassau Street Ventures, S2G Ventures, Middleland Capital, M2O, Tridon, Ajax Strategies and Chase Field also participated in the funding round.

As part of the funding, managing director at Prelude Ventures Mark Cupta will join Arable’s board.

Central to Arable’s offering is a focus on providing rich data for farming, from initial seed breeding through to food production.

Tel Aviv-based startup Deci.AI has secured $9.1m in seed funding to build an AI-based platform that can automatically optimise AI models for enterprises.

Engineers can add their deep neural network solutions to Deci’s platform, which will then use AI to tweak and optimise the models to make them more efficient and ready for production at scale.

Venture capital firms Emerge and Square Peg led the funding round.

The startup says its hardware optimisation could reduce the performance gap between CPUs and GPUs.

Daimler Truck AG has acquired a minority stake in Luminar Technologies, which provides sensor technology for autonomous vehicles.

The teams will work to enhance LiDAR sensing and system-level performance for Daimler trucks moving at speed.