Catherine Badour

I.am+, the tech startup founded by pop star and entrepreneur will.i.am, has raised $117 million in venture funding, the company told Reuters on Monday as it announced its entry into the corporate computing market with a voice assistant for customer service.

HelloFresh shares rose as much as 4 percent on their first day of public trading, valuing the Berlin-based meal-kit delivery firm at more than double Blue Apron, the U.S rival from which it is rapidly seizing market share, Reuters reported.

Bitcoin climbed to a new all-time high of $6,450 on Wednesday, boosted by bets the cryptocurrency could enter the financial mainstream after the world’s largest derivatives exchange operator said on Tuesday it would launch bitcoin futures, Reuters reported.

Germany’s Continental AG (CONG.DE) is in advanced talks to buy Israel’s Argus Cyber Security, whose technology guards connected cars from hacking, for about $400 million, Israeli media reported on Monday.

Silicon Valley business software startup Zenefits and its cofounder Parker Conrad have been fined nearly $1 million by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a settlement over charges that they misled investors, Reuters reported.

Canadian debt issuance climbed 12 percent to a record in the first nine months of 2017, helped by deals from Canada Housing Trust and a major maple bond from Apple, bucking a weak trend in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and equity deals as Canadian companies slowed the pace of their outbound deal-making, Reuters reported. Debt deal volumes rose to $140.5 billion in the period, while M&A and equity deals dropped more than a fifth, according to Thomson Reuters data released this week. High valuations and uncertainty surrounding U.S. regulations and trade policies held back Canadian buyers from acquiring overseas assets, bankers said. But the maple bond market, in which foreign companies sell Canadian dollar-denominated debt, attracted a slew of blue-chip companies.

Canadian merger and acquisition activity in the first nine months of the year touched their highest level since the financial crisis, buoyed by several big-ticket deals across a range of sectors, Reuters reported, citing data from Thomson Reuters. M&A deal value jumped 17 percent to US$209.7 billion in the period, up from US$178.9 billion from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. It was the best first nine months since 2007.

The value of announced mergers and acquisitions worldwide fell 27 percent year-on-year to US$753 billion in the third quarter of 2016, as apprehension among corporate executives about overpaying prevented a repeat of last year's deal-making frenzy, Reuters reported. The preliminary Thomson Reuters M&A data shows the euphoria that drove merger mania in 2015 has subsided. While M&A activity remains robust, deal-makers said companies are being more selective in their decisions to do deals.

Brexit jitters will dampen global appetite for mergers and acquisitions until Britain clarifies when and how it will negotiate an exit from the European Union, Reuters reported, citing a new survey of deal-makers. Some 70 percent of 1,001 M&A professionals from around the world surveyed by technology provider Intralinks said the number of M&A deals would fall until Brexit worries subside. Two-thirds of respondents said Britain leaving the EU would have a negative impact on global deal volumes for the rest of 2016.

Acquisitions in the utility sector and a major cross-border pipeline transaction helped drive the volume of Canadian M&A activity up 48 percent in the first quarter of 2016, even though the number of deals declined, Reuters reported. Thomson Reuters data released on Thursday showed the overall number of deals in the period fell 18 percent to 511 from a year earlier, while the deal value surged to US$67.9 billion from US$45.9 billion a year ago.