Akash Pasricha

New York

Reporter at The Information

reporter @theinformation / reach me: akash at theinformation dot com / made in @toronto 🍁

Articles

The Takeover Targets Emerging Out of IPO Dead Ends

3 weeks ago | theinformation.com | Akash Pasricha

This year has seen trickles of tech initial public offering activity, but there’s still a sizable list of IPO hopefuls whose public market ambitions have stalled. Bankers say that dynamic is encouraging more private companies to try to find a buyer instead. To that end, we updated our Tech IPO Tracker to highlight the likeliest takeover targets among the private companies we’ve been keeping tabs on.
Optimism in Tech Sector Returns: The Information Survey

1 month ago | theinformation.com | Akash Pasricha

Source: The InformationReaders of The Information said they are overwhelmingly optimistic about the operating environment for technology companies for the coming six months, according to our April survey. In all, 54% of readers said they expect conditions to improve, while 15% said they expect conditions will worsen and 31% said things will stay the same. It’s the highest our sentiment score has read since February.
Bots or Bust: ServiceNow’s Bill McDermott Makes an All-In Bet on AI

1 month ago | theinformation.com | Akash Pasricha

Late on a Friday night in March, Bill McDermott, ServiceNow’s CEO and chairman, walked off a flight in San Jose, Calif., and then immediately asked his chief of staff to get his top sales and engineering execs on the phone. He had a task for them. McDermott had just spent a week in New York meeting with customers, including the heads of banks and a sports league.
Confidence in Tech Sector Drops: The Information Survey

2 months ago | theinformation.com | Akash Pasricha

Source: The InformationSentiment around how conditions for technology companies will fare over the next six months is the most pessimistic it has been since February 2023, according to an April survey of The Information’s readers. Roughly 65% of respondents said they feel pessimistic while 20% said they feel optimistic about tech firms’ prospects—the most negative reading since The Information’s monthly surveys began two years ago.
ServiceNow Tops Revenue Expectations; Shares Jump

2 months ago | theinformation.com | Akash Pasricha

Source: The InformationServiceNow’s revenue rose 18.5% in the first quarter to $3.09 billion, the company said Wednesday, the second consecutive quarter topline growth has decelerated slightly. But the biggest part of ServiceNow’s business, software subscriptions, exceeded previous projections and the IT automation company slightly raised its subscription revenue forecast for the year.
Creator Startup Funding Hits Highest Level Since 2021

2 months ago | theinformation.com | Akash Pasricha

U.S. creator economy startups raised more money in the first three months of the year than in any quarter since 2021 as investors placed bigger bets on companies tied to music, artificial intelligence and shopping. U.S. creator startups raised $928 million during the first quarter, nearly two and a half times the funds raised in the same period a year ago, according to new data from The Information’s Creator Economy Database. The number of deals fell slightly.
Catching Up With The Next GPs: Backing Brex Alumni, Rollups and AI Apps

2 months ago | theinformation.com | Akash Pasricha

Last March, our inaugural list of The Next GPs highlighted investors that could be calling the shots at major venture capital firms in the coming years. Today, as we unveil a new list of up-and-comers, we’re also checking in on our 2024 cohort. Some of their investments have already paid off handsomely. Stripe bought Bridge, a stablecoin startup founded by Brex alumni, for $1.1 billion in February, in one of the biggest-ever crypto acquisitions.
Pro Weekly: AI Agent M&A Heats Up

Mar 14, 2025 | flipboard.com | Akash Pasricha

6 hours agoTech Leaders Sound a Warning for Coders: AI Is Coming for Their JobsShould software developers be quivering in their digital boots? Maybe, according to some tech CEOs—although nuances remain. The debate about AI replacing people’s jobs has raged ever more ferociously as more sophisticated AI tools from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Salesforce have rolled out …3 hours agoWhat Is An AI Agent?
AI.com Is for Sale. Asking Price? $100 Million

Mar 1, 2025 | theinformation.com | Akash Pasricha

Deep in Queens, New York, out near John F. Kennedy Airport, Larry Fischer was distraught. One of his favorite Italian joints—Don Peppe, the place where he lunched with Facebook’s lawyers after selling them Messenger.com in 2014—had closed for vacation this past week. It had seemed like a fitting place for our conversation about another domain name deal he’s got in the works that he hopes can be even higher profile. “You don’t know how bummed I am,” he said.
92 Software Startups That Could Be for Sale This Year

Feb 26, 2025 | theinformation.com | Akash Pasricha

Many startups that sell cloud-based software to companies are struggling with the aftermath of the pandemic’s low-interest-rate period, which encouraged businesses to spend more on tools to help employees work remotely and investors to pour tens of billions of dollars into these startups. Now dozens of them face dwindling choices. They are growing too slowly to be good candidates for initial public offerings, at least for the next few years.