We tracked 11 startup acquisitions announced between 27 April – 3 May 2026, across 4 regions. Only 5 disclosed a price, adding up to $3.18bn; the rest kept terms private, which is normal for venture-backed exits.
The largest was Eli Lilly’s $2.3bn purchase of Ajax Therapeutics, which had raised $135m. Nebius paid $643m for Eigen AI.
AI accounted for 3 deals and North America for 7.
Thursday, 30 April 2026
Photo: Pi.1415926535 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0Commerce & marketing · North AmericaRecharge buys Shopify subscription rival Skio for $105 million in cash, founder saysSkio had raised only $8 million and never hired a sales team, yet reached $32 million in annual recurring revenue before its larger competitor bought it.
Photo: 妖精書士 / Wikimedia Commons, CC0Commerce & marketing · East AsiaZOZO buys fragrance subscription startup High Link for ¥4.99bn ($31.9m)Fashion e-commerce group ZOZO paid about ¥4.99bn (about $31.9m) for the company behind the Coloria perfume subscription, its first step into the fragrance market.
Photo: Namaste jinx / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0AI · North AmericaPalo Alto Networks agrees to acquire AI gateway startup PortkeyPortkey had closed a $15 million Series A only ten weeks earlier; Palo Alto Networks is turning its gateway, which routes company traffic to more than 3,000 AI models and tools, into the control point of its Prisma AIRS platform.Wednesday, 29 April 2026
Photo: FlippyFlink / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Fintech · IsraelMoonPay acquires Israeli key-management startup Sodot and launches an institutional businessBloomberg valued the all-stock deal at about $100 million, more than 20 times the $4.5 million Sodot had raised; its technology becomes the base of a new unit run by former acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham.
Photo: U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Tory Cusimano / Wikimedia Commons, Public domainAI · North AmericaAugment acquires stealth startup Merlin to take its AI teammate into wholesale distributionMerlin had not launched publicly, yet its quote-to-cash software was already used by distributors with more than $20 billion in combined revenue, including Reece and Ewing Outdoor Supply.Tuesday, 28 April 2026
Photo: Unknown photographer / Wikimedia Commons, Public domainHealthtech & bio · North AmericaAzra AI acquires lung cancer screening software maker Thynk HealthThe combined company's software runs in hundreds of hospitals, including five of the ten largest US health systems, and Thynk's chief executive becomes Azra's COO.
Photo: Tatiana Lapina veila / Wikimedia Commons, CC0Cybersecurity · IsraelSilverfort acquires Fabrix Security, a year-old Israeli startup building AI agents for identityFabrix had 14 employees and an $8 million seed round behind it when Silverfort bought it; neither side disclosed terms, but Calcalist estimated the price in the tens of millions of dollars.
Photo: Tirza van Dijk tirzavandijk / Wikimedia Commons, CC0Cybersecurity · North AmericaSocket acquires Secure Annex, a one-person startup that watches browser and editor extensionsSecure Annex had a single employee, its founder John Tuckner, yet counted Reddit and Brave among its customers; Socket bought it to take its supply-chain checks beyond open-source packages.Monday, 27 April 2026
Photo: Unknown / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0Healthtech & bio · North AmericaEli Lilly agrees to buy Ajax Therapeutics for up to $2.3 billionLilly, which calls itself a founding strategic investor in Ajax, is paying for a blood-cancer drug that is still in Phase 1 and has not yet shown proof-of-concept data.
Photo: Jim Barton / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0Travel & hospitality · IndiaRBS acquires Indian hotel guest engagement startup ZekoThe US hospitality software maker, which serves more than 4,800 properties, will build Zeko's AI upselling and WhatsApp tools into its hotel, restaurant and retail products.