Wary of aggressive regulators, tech dealmakers are getting creative. Microsoft’s decision to hire co-founders and staff of artificial intelligence start-up Inflection is not an acquisition, according to the companies. Let’s see if Washington agrees.

On the surface, the plan appears to skirt the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act that requires companies to report pre-merger notifications for acquisitions. In addition to hiring staff, Microsoft is reported to be paying to license Inflection AI software but the deal is not exclusive. Inflection will remain an independent business, albeit a hollowed out one. It can keep licensing its technology and can even be acquired. 

The Israeli business has developed technologies for detecting and addressing vulnerabilities in code throughout the development stages of applications.

Calcalist has heard that software firm GitLab will pay $30-40 million for Israeli cloud security startup Oxeye. This is GitLab’s second acquisition in Israel, following its purchase of Fuzzit in 2020.

Oxeye, founded by Dean Agron and Ron Vider, has developed technology for detecting and correcting code flaws during the application development process. Oxeye’s security testing solution is designed for AppSec, Dev, and DevOps teams, allowing them to shift security to the left while also accelerating development cycles, reducing friction, and minimizing risks.

Data lakehouse provider Databricks said it is acquiring Boston-based Lilac AI to help enterprises explore and use their unstructured data for building generative AI-based applications.

“Today, we are thrilled to announce that Lilac is joining Databricks. Lilac is a scalable, user-friendly tool for data scientists to search, cluster, and analyze any kind of text dataset with a focus on generative AI,” the company wrote in a blog post.

Lilac AI, according to listings on its portal, offered a service named Garden that would allow enterprises to search, quantify, and edit data for large language models (LLMs) that are to be used in generative AI-based applications.

I’ve written about the Immersive Learning market often, each time pointing out the astounding learning power within these platforms. Now that we have consumer VR headsets like the Meta Quest and Apple Vision-Pro, this market is ready to explode.

Today, Cornerstone, the $1 Billion+ leader in corporate learning platforms, is announcing the acquisition of Talespin, one of the leaders in tools and content for immersive learning.

Teachers and instructors know that the only way we truly learn is “learning by doing.” And this understanding has led to the development of simulations, role-plays, war games, and hundreds of other interactive learning experiences. In fact every “major learning” experience I’ve had in my life started with some memorable (or frightening) experience that taught me to “never let this happen again.”

Tech giant and cloud-based platform ServiceNow has signed an agreement to acquire 4Industry, a connected worker platform for manufacturers, and has completed the acquisition of a connected digital worker application from EY, Smart Daily Management.

Both acquisitions will better place ServiceNow’s existing operational technology (OT) management capabilities, the vendor says.

It adds the buys will also enhance expertise across key industrial markets, including manufacturing, transport and logistics, and energy.

NCino plans to acquire DocFox to create a single platform that will enable financial institutions to manage the entire client lifecycle. The combined solution will encompass information intake, document collection and due diligence. NCino’s acquisition of DocFox is expected to close by the end of March, according to the release.

“The acquisition of DocFox extends our existing functionality and will deliver a modern experience to an area of commercial and business banking that has lagged in innovation due to its complexity,” Pierre Naudé, CEO and chairman of the board at nCino, said in the release. “We are excited to further extend our single platform vision and look forward to delivering this differentiating solution to financial institutions seeking to optimize onboarding and account opening processes.”

Bank-to-bank payments company GoCardless announced it has agreed to acquire Nuapay. The financial terms of the agreement, which is subject to regulatory approvals, have not been disclosed.

The Nuapay brand is owned by EML Payments, which was founded in 2003 and headquartered in Australia, where it trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker EML. EML Payments acquired Nuapay in 2021 for an undisclosed amount. Nuapay itself was originally founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Ireland. The company launched to leverage open banking to power account-to-account payments. In addition to pay-by-bank services, Nuapay also offers credit transfers, direct debits, verified payouts, and more.

The Israeli startup, founded in 2018, has developed an orchestration and virtualization software layer tailored to the unique needs of AI workloads running on GPUs and similar chipsets. The value of the deal is estimated at many hundreds of millions of dollars and could even reach $1 billion

Nvidia is in advanced negotiations to acquire AI infrastructure orchestration and management platform Run:ai, Calcalist has learned.

The value of the deal is estimated at many hundreds of millions of dollars and could even reach $1 billion. The companies did not respond to Calcalist's request for comment.