We tracked 18 startup acquisitions announced between 31 August – 6 September 2026, across 8 regions. Only 6 disclosed a price, adding up to $16.46bn; the rest kept terms private, which is normal for venture-backed exits.
The largest was Nvidia’s $12.93bn purchase of Hugging Face, which had raised $395m. Eli Lilly paid $2.88bn for Merida Biosciences.
Fintech accounted for 4 deals and North America for 6. 1 deal was an acquihire.
Thursday, 3 September 2026
Image: Hugging FaceAI · North AmericaNvidia agrees to buy Hugging Face for $12.93 billionNvidia is paying almost three times Hugging Face's last private valuation for the open model hub, and promised developers they will not need Nvidia hardware to keep using it.
Photo: Solomon203 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0HR & work · OceaniaSwipejobs to buy Expert360 in a sale that reportedly leaves its founder with nothingExpert360 raised about A$30 million (about US$21 million) over a decade, but the reported A$16 million (about US$11 million) sale pays out only holders of its Series C and C1 preference shares.
Photo: Marcosleal / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0Fintech · Latin AmericaC6 Bank buys benefits fintech Alymente to enter Brazil's corporate benefits marketThe JPMorgan-backed digital bank is buying a ready-made platform with more than 100,000 users rather than building one, as rule changes open Brazil's R$150 billion (about $29 billion) a year benefits market to new players.
Image: NilumCommerce & marketing · EuropeeComID buys Stockholm AI second-hand shopping startup Nilum after $17M seed roundDays after raising what it called Europe's largest fashion-tech seed round, eComID bought Nilum to bring pre-owned products into its Shopping Passport, and hired Nilum's founder to lead recommerce.
Image: EmpionHR & work · EuropeFactorial acquires Berlin AI hiring-assessment startup Empion to grow in GermanyThe Barcelona HR software company, valued at $2.5 billion, is turning Empion's culture-fit scoring into native candidate and employee assessments in its own platform.
Photo: Eduard Marmet / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0AI · IsraelServiceNow acquires Israeli agentic CRM startup SweepSweep had raised $46 million in disclosed funding, but CTech estimated that ServiceNow paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the company, its second Israeli AI purchase in under two months.Wednesday, 2 September 2026
Photo: Gpkp / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Commerce & marketing · IndiaAdobe acquires Indian AI marketing startup Rilo in licensing and team dealRilo was about a year old and had raised $1 million at a $10 million valuation. Adobe takes some of its technology and its six-person team, and the product shuts down.
Photo: Jeff Attaway from Abuja, Nigeria / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0Healthtech & bio · AfricaAlan buys Senegal's Tanel in its first acquisition in AfricaThe French health insurer, which first backed Tanel in its 2024 seed round, now owns a business covering about 70,000 people in Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire, and gives Tanel's early investors a rare Francophone African exit.
Image: SynackCybersecurity · North AmericaNetSPI and Synack merge to form KKR-owned offensive security firm with $200M+ revenueThe deal joins NetSPI's full-time penetration testers with Synack's crowd of vetted freelance researchers, creating a company with roughly 800 staff that KKR will majority own.Tuesday, 1 September 2026
Image: ConsoleAI · North AmericaPalo Alto Networks acquires AI help-desk startup Console, reportedly for $500 millionTwo years after its founding, Console sold for about three times its last private valuation, according to TechCrunch and PitchBook. Palo Alto CEO Nikesh Arora was one of its angel investors.
Photo: Rsherwin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Mobility & logistics · North AmericaDescartes acquires 3PL warehouse software maker Extensiv for $120 millionThe all-cash deal was Descartes' second in about a week, after it paid $100 million for freight brokerage software provider Tai.
Image: MargeloDeveloper tools · EuropeCallstack acquires Vienna's Margelo in deal valuing it above €20 millionMargelo, maker of React Native libraries with tens of millions of downloads, was wholly owned by its founder, Marc Rousavy, before the sale. He keeps a significant stake.
Photo: Linda Herrera / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Edtech · Middle EastAbwaab acquires Egyptian teacher-software startup Eduact in second deal of 2026The Jordanian edtech company is moving beyond selling to students: Eduact's software runs the business side of Egypt's independent teachers and tutoring centres.
Photo: Harrison Keely / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0Fintech · North AmericaTyfone acquires ATTUNE to add account opening and loan origination for community banksThe deal gives Portland-based Tyfone the front door of the banking relationship: ATTUNE's software opens accounts and originates loans before customers ever reach digital banking.Monday, 31 August 2026
Photo: Paul Sableman / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0Healthtech & bio · North AmericaEli Lilly agrees to buy Merida Biosciences for up to $2.875 billionLilly is paying up to $2.875 billion in cash for a company that announced its $121 million Series A only 16 months earlier. Merida's lead drug, in Phase 1, is designed to remove the antibodies that cause Graves' disease rather than suppress the whole immune system.
Photo: Sergey Galyonkin from Kyiv, Ukraine / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0Consumer & media · EuropeHITAI buys the technology of Tencent-backed fitness gaming studio QuellCombat-sports analytics company HITAI acquired the motion-recognition models, Impact console hardware and Shardfall game of Quell, a Y Combinator alumnus that raised $15.6 million. It plans to use sensor-based tracking where cameras cannot be placed well.
Photo: Ayorinde Ogundele / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Fintech · AfricaPaystack quietly acquired card-issuing fintech Allawee, customer emails showThe Stripe-owned payments company bought Allawee in 2025 without announcing it. The deal surfaced when Allawee told customers their accounts and cards would stop working on 1 December 2026.