Mergers &
Acquisitions

Deal: EsoBiotec Acquired By AstraZeneca

Reported By: Ashrith Desu
Released On: March 17^th, 2025 @ 3:27AM ET
Deal Value & Components: $1 billion → $425 million upfront payment + up to $575 million in contingencies

Strategic Rationale

• AstraZeneca aims to strengthen itEBbHs cell therapy capabilities through integrating ENaBL, and expand patients’ access to innovative and efficient treatments.
• EsoBiotec aims to have the financial backing to accelerate its development and commercialization of strategies for in vivo cell engineering. The deal will allow them to bring the platform to a larger population and revolutionize cell therapy solutions

AstraZeneca to Acquire EsoBiotec in Deal Worth Up to $1 Billion

EsoBiotec SA and AstraZeneca (NASDAQ: AZN) have entered into a definitive agreement for AZN to acquire EsoBiotec for up to $1 billion, with an initial payment of $425 million upon closing, along with up to $575 million based on achievements of development and regulatory milestones.

EsoBiotec’s Groundbreaking In Vivo Cell Therapy Platform

EsoBiotec is a Belgian company focused on developing vivo cell therapies, aimed at treating cancer and autoimmune diseases. They own a proprietary technology ENaBL (Engineered NanoBody Lentiviral), which empowers the immune system to attack cancers and offers wider access to cell therapy treatments delivered in just minutes, as opposed to weeks. While current processes involve extracting and modifying cells outside the body, this technology allows direct engineering within the body, through the platform’s ability to deliver genetic instructions to specific cells and recognize tumor cells early.

EsoBiotec to Operate as AstraZeneca Subsidiary Post-Acquisition

With this acquisition, EsoBiotec will become a subsidiary of AstraZeneca, with operations continuing in Belgium.

Source: https://seekingalpha.com/news/4421061-astrazeneca-to-buy-esobiotec-in-1-billion-deal-to-advance-cell-therapy-ambition

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Deal: Hotshot Acquired By xAI

Reported By: Julia Su
Released On: March 17^th, 2025 @ 2:47 PM ET
Deal Value & Components: Undisclosed

Strategic Rationale

• The acquisition is intended to increase the company’s AI capabilities and to establish it as a strong rival in the AI video generation space.
• xAI hopes to improve its multi-modal AI services– including its Grock chatbot platform– with advanced video-generating capabilities with the help of HotShot’s technology.
• This will allow xAI to enter the market and compete directly with leaders in the industry like OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo 2.
• Through the acquisition, HotShot’s AI models will be scaled using xAI’s powerful Colossus supercomputer, which would accelerate development and performance.
• Furthermore, this would diversify xAI’s AI portfolio and open up new revenue streams.

xAI Acquires AI Video Generation Startup HotShot

xAI, a company of Elon Musk, has acquired a San Francisco-based startup specializing in AI video generation tools.

HotShot’s Origins and Investor Backing

Founded in 2017, Aakash Sastry and John Mullan founded HotShot. Hotshot-XL, Hotshot Act One, and Hotshot are among the video foundation models that the startup created. Prominent investors such as Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and Lachy Groom backed it.

Boosting xAI’s Multi-Modal Capabilities with Supercomputing Power

This acquisition will allow xAI to grow HotShot’s models on its supercomputer– equipped with 200,000 Nvidia Hopper GPUs. The goal of this acquisition is to improve xAI's multi-modal AI capabilities. Users will have until the end of the month to download their data before its integration into xAI’s platform.

Sources: https://seekingalpha.com/news/4421412-xai-acquires-ai-video-startup-hotshot
https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/spectrum-x-ethernet-networking-xai-colossus