What's happening: FoodOp secures £4.4 million to scale AI‑powered kitchen SaaS
FoodOp, a SaaS platform for professional chefs, raised £4.4 million in a round led by MK Capital to accelerate its rollout in the UK and US. The service is used daily by over 2,000 chefs across more than 700 kitchens, automating procurement, menu planning and budgeting with AI‑driven tools.
Also developing:
The article outlines a transition from single‑user, prompt‑driven AI to multiplayer AI agents that embed themselves in team conversations and retain project context over time. It describes four core agent roles—context, coordination, synthesis, and execution—that work together to surface information, manage dependencies, generate insights, and perform routine tasks. By operating inside existing collaboration tools, these agents eliminate the need for users to repeatedly re‑explain problems. Early adopters report faster coordination, richer knowledge sharing, and a strategic edge for organizations that treat AI as a permanent team member.
Amazon announced that its Alexa+ AI assistant is now available via any web browser, initially through an Early Access program at Alexa.com. The web version mirrors the device‑based experience, handling shopping, calendar management, document analysis and smart‑home control. By decoupling...
“Services revenue kills valuation.” So we tried to keep it “pure SaaS.” We ran customers on world-class cold email infrastructure. But they had to do everything else: write campaigns, build lists, optimize. Most failed. So we did the typical “scaled CS” move: hours of coaching, trainings, live...
“Services revenue kills valuation.” So we tried to keep it “pure SaaS.” At ListKit , we ran customers on world-class cold email infrastructure. But they had to do everything else: write their campaigns, build their lists, and optimize. Here’s what...

In August 2022 LastPass suffered a data breach that exposed encrypted password vaults, many of which stored cryptocurrency seed phrases. Researchers from TRM Labs have now linked the breach to ongoing thefts, estimating that criminals have extracted roughly $35 million by...
Products move through people before they move anywhere else. They spread in passing comments, side conversations, and offhand recommendations that were never planned. That only happens when a product alters daily behavior enough that omission feels strange. The improvement becomes...

NordVPN has publicly denied a reported breach of its internal Salesforce database after a hacker claimed to have accessed development tools, source code, and API keys. The attacker posted alleged SQL dumps and screenshots on a dark‑web forum, suggesting a...
“We’re generating leads, but we aren’t closing deals.” I hear this often from SaaS businesses, and it’s rarely a simple fix. - Sometimes you’re attracting the wrong prospects. - Sometimes sales is dropping the ball on demo calls. - Sometimes...
Big news. I have officially started rewriting the OG Product-Led Growth Book with Laura Kluz . It has been 6 years since I wrote the original. In tech years, that is a lifetime. Back then, PLG was a choice. You...

Google announced that, starting January 2026, Gmail will discontinue support for POP3 mail fetching and the Gmailify feature that applied Gmail’s spam protection and organization tools to third‑party accounts. The change removes the ability to consolidate external email accounts directly within...

AI‑focused startup Unusual announced a $3.6 million seed round to help brands control how generative AI models describe them. Backed by investors such as BoxGroup, Y Combinator and Instacart co‑founder Max Mullen, the company offers a platform that probes AI reasoning and...

London‑based edtech firm Multiverse announced 55 redundancy payments for the year to March 2025, reflecting its first headcount reduction since founding. The company posted a pre‑tax loss of £63.3 million, up £2.6 million year‑on‑year, even as revenue climbed more than a third to...
OSS Sustain Guard is an open‑source, multi‑language analyzer that evaluates the health of software dependencies using 24 core sustainability metrics. It scans packages across Python, JavaScript, Go, Rust, Java, and many other ecosystems, delivering scores on maintainer activity, community engagement,...

One of the biggest myths in SaaS is that if a business isn’t pure subscription, it’s not sellable. That’s wrong. A recent $4.5M cloud computing acquisition on @acquiredotcom proved it. This company didn’t have textbook recurring revenue, but it did have...

Build a Micro-SaaS in 7 days. Test the market. Then double down or kill it. Rinse and repeat until you have a working product. 🔹 Days 1-2: Think like a user, not a founder. What makes this necessary? Sketch the data and the screens....

ContractPodAI has rebranded as Leah, adopting the name of its flagship AI platform to signal a broader focus beyond contract lifecycle management. The company now offers an agentic automation suite that spans legal, finance, and procurement functions, while still retaining...
The Silicon Republic piece outlines the tech competencies poised for high demand in 2026, spanning digi‑health, fintech, education and leadership. It highlights wearables, data analytics, AR/VR, AI, machine learning, blockchain and quantum security as core technical pillars. Soft skills such...

Capita secured a £239 million contract to operate the UK Civil Service Pension Scheme, serving 1.7 million members and managing £189 billion in future benefits. The new pension portal, launched on 1 December 2025, immediately suffered widespread errors, broken links, and placeholder text, prompting user...

Kerrie Jordan, Epicor’s CMO and SVP of Product, shares how a blend of storytelling and technical expertise shaped her career from a literature degree to senior leadership. Early roles at a product‑lifecycle startup and Oracle honed her ability to turn...
In 2025 software engineers grappled with rapid AI integration, facing skill erosion, cost‑heavy LLM infrastructure, and rising burnout as delivery pressures intensified. Gartner analysts warn that overreliance on AI tools can stunt core engineering capabilities, making upskilling a critical priority....

New Zealand Health Minister Simeon Brown has ordered a comprehensive review of the cyberattack on private health‑record platform ManageMyHealth, which may have exposed data of 6‑7% of the nation’s 1.85 million users. The breach, claimed by a hacker known as Kazu,...

The article contrasts two competing philosophies in AI agent platforms: techno‑optimists who champion high‑autonomy, exploratory agents, and enterprise‑incrementalists who embed agents within existing, controlled processes. Although both camps use similar terminology, their underlying beliefs about agency, risk, and value creation...
5 days into January. CEO already on you about why January is pacing slow… Good time to join a community like Exit Five. Place to vent, get feedback, share with your peers. Details here: https://www.exitfive.com/
CIOs are shaping 2026 agendas around AI, agentic automation, and people‑centric technology. Leaders such as Cognizant’s Neal Ramasamy plan to deploy purpose‑built small language models and invest in GPU infrastructure to deliver actionable insights across functions. Across the board, executives...
Oshkosh Corp., a century‑old industrial‑tech firm, is turning AI hype into measurable value by embedding intelligence directly into its vehicles and business processes. CIO Anu Khare leads a disciplined four‑pillar AI framework—scope, technology, prioritization, and value measurement—that ties projects to...

As cloud adoption accelerates, data sovereignty—where data obeys the laws of its storage location—has become a top concern for organizations beyond governments. A recent OVHcloud survey shows 77% of UK IT decision‑makers now view sovereignty as more critical than three...
Enterprises are hitting a hidden bottleneck dubbed “slow AI,” where outdated, complex networks impede the rapid rollout of AI workloads. AI’s massive data throughput, ultra‑low latency, and hybrid‑cloud demands expose gaps in legacy network capacity, visibility, and security. Companies often...

WholeSum, a UK‑based qualitative analytics startup, secured £730,000 combining a Women TechEU grant with a pre‑seed round led by Twin Path Ventures. The funding also involved SFC, Ventures Together angels, and founders from JustPark, Episode 1, ClearScore, and Prolific. WholeSum’s AI‑driven...
Brex is shifting from traditional AI agent orchestration to an “Agent Mesh,” a network of narrow, role‑specific agents that converse in plain language and operate independently while maintaining full visibility. The mesh replaces a central coordinator with event‑driven message streams,...
Scott wrote this and it finally clicked for me. Credit where it’s due. “Gen Z is right to not care about folders.” The reason this is correct has nothing to do with age. It’s about how information actually behaves. Folders force premature certainty....
I built RB2B to $6M ARR through organic content. Then I recorded 20 video ads in 2 days and went all in on paid. Why? Because I used this exact playbook in 2020 to launch GetEmails. 🧵

Cisco Systems is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire cyber‑asset‑management startup Axonius for about $2 billion, though Axonius publicly denied any acquisition discussions. Founded in 2017, Axonius offers an agent‑less platform that aggregates data from hundreds of security and IT tools...

Love when founders go ALL IN on a niche problem. High-margin SEO micro-SaaS dropped on @acquiredotcom. Proven demand with low operating costs and recurring revenue: > $120K TTM revenue > $106K TTM profit > $185K asking price Full listing: https://t.co/wEmZSNHIYp https://t.co/H2P0UFshLo
Reminder, Basecamp is entirely free for educators, classroom use, and homeschooling. Here's how to get your free account: https://t.co/AnYJocZfR6

Palo Alto Networks is in talks to acquire Israeli startup Koi Security for about $400 million. Koi, founded in 2024 by former Unit 8200 veterans, offers a Supply Chain Gateway and AI‑driven risk engine that provide continuous visibility and control over software...
This is a wonderful example by Len from Podia of what it means to adopt @Fin_ai: 🟢 64% resolution rate 🟢 much happier customers (see the screenshots) 🟢 much happier team It's win-win-win. It's 2026, It's time for you too. → Fin .ai...
The SaaS market isn’t broken—fundamentals still win. Scale, retention, growth, profitability. You don’t need perfect metrics, but you need the right combination—and something differentiated. 🎙️ New SaaS CFO Podcast w/ Jim Williams ▶️ https://t.co/qRnBVxuCM5 https://t.co/8OXVKuRyJw
Traceformer is an LLM‑powered PCB schematic checker that analyzes KiCad or Altium projects through a three‑phase multi‑agent pipeline. The Planner creates work orders, up to ten parallel Workers retrieve datasheet evidence and run lightweight models, and the Merger compiles a...
All I can think about is how we used to talk about enterprise value of startups based on engineering headcount. Some people think the value of a code-capable FTE is about to drop with AI… but I’m not so sure
I'm a massive fan (and daily user) of agentic coding tools like Claude Code and Codex CLI. One of the questions we'll need to ponder in 2026: How do you make sure that the compounding value you are getting from...
OpenGitOps is an open‑source initiative defining standards, best practices, and education for GitOps adoption. It codifies version‑controlled, declarative infrastructure management through four core principles: declarative state, immutable versioning, automatic pulling, and continuous reconciliation. Backed by industry leaders like Google’s Kelsey...
A developer runs six Claude Code agents from an iPhone using Termius, mosh, and a Tailscale‑secured Vultr VM. The VM is started and stopped on demand via iOS shortcuts, costing about $0.29 per hour. Push notifications from a custom webhook...
Microsoft introduced the Agent Launchers framework, letting developers register AI agents directly with Windows via a manifest that surfaces them in the taskbar, Copilot, and other apps. First‑party agents such as Analyst and Researcher already use the preview, demonstrating context‑aware...
"I should be able to leave that meeting and say, I know on a scale of 1 to 10 how likely this is to be a real sales opportunity." Meet Jennifer Dulski, CEO of Rising Team. Rising Team has been...
"I should be able to leave that meeting and say, I know on a scale of 1 to 10 how likely this is to be a real sales opportunity." Meet Jennifer Dulski , CEO of Rising Team . Rising Team...
“I like being scared” Molly Graham has worked for some of tech’s most effective leaders, including Mark Zuckerberg , Chamath Palihapitiya , Sheryl Sandberg , and Bret Taylor . She’s best known for her “Give away your Legos” framework and...
If your strategy fits on a napkin, it's probably good. If it needs a 40-slide deck, it's probably broken.
It’s not deal volume—it's deal quality. Buyers want A-grade SaaS assets. B & C deals are stalling, valuations remain disciplined, and many founders decided 2025 wasn’t the year to sell. 🎙️ New SaaS CFO Podcast w/ Jim Williams ▶️ https://t.co/qRnBVxuCM5 https://t.co/gC773j9VyT