To get a roundup of australiabusinessblog.com’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3PM PDT, register here.

It’s the most beautiful time of the year. Of course, we’re talking about that time of year when all the startup chaos goes on at a rapid pace, and we spend our lives waiting to see how it all turns out, clutching at our cups of hot cocoa, as the holiday-appropriate music turns on. wrapped around us like a warm blanket. Ahhh. — Christine and Hey

The australiabusinessblog.com Top 3

• We’ll have what they have: Ron and Alex wrote last week about Coupa’s investors warning that a sale to private equity would not be good for the company. Well, today we learned that Thoma Bravo is acquiring Coupa as the private equity firm continues its M&A. It should generate an interesting opinion from investors: Ron reports that the company is being acquired for $81 per share, or $8 billion. Some investors pushed for $95 per share.
• “Cloudy” sky ahead of us: Microsoft acquires a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange Group as part of a 10-year cloud partnership, Paul writes.
• This chair is very good: Purchasing the right furniture is a battle between finding good quality items and finding items that are in stock and don’t cost a fortune to obtain. Nigerian startup Taeillo raised $2.5 million in fresh capital to develop its online furniture store, which it says offers cheaper items at a fraction of the waiting time. Tage writes.

Startups and VC

Fallen FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried will testify as a witness before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee tomorrow, reports Jaquelyn. The commission is investigating the events that led to the implosion of FTX, which led the crypto exchange to go bankrupt last month.

And we have five more for you:

• Jumping Jack Flash, it’s a CO2, CO2, CO2: Sydney-based Pathzero helps investors track their portfolios’ carbon emissions by Catherine.
• Maybe time to wear eye masks: Connie talk to economist Paul Kedrosky, wondering if ChatGPT is a “virus released into the wild”.
• Where’s the money?: Potentially massive shake-up in university endowments as proposed legislation would force U.S. higher education endowments to reveal what they invest in, reports Dominic Madori.
• Bringing robotics to more small businesses: Robco joins $14 million led by Sequoia to bring modular robotics to industrial SMBs, writes Ingrid.
• I’m the gas man: Avarni is building a comprehensive dataset to analyze supply chain emissions, reports Catherine.

How to implement a video SEO strategy

Image Credits: George (Opens in a new window) /Getty Images

For anyone running a website, “pivot to video” has become a sour joke.

If your startup is shaping its video content strategy, a large-scale shift isn’t required: Instead, conduct a content audit to identify areas where interactive content can drive growth, such as testimonials, product announcements, and webinars.

In a beginner’s guide, SEORadar creator Mark Munroe shares a checklist for building a video SEO strategy that drives traffic and generates leads.

“Getting a sustained increase in web traffic is every SEO strategist’s dream, and video is too [a] no-brainer way to do it,” writes Munroe.

Three more from the TC+ team:

australiabusinessblog.com+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams lead the way. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Layoffs seem to have hit the gaming world. Ingrid reports that Playtika – a publicly traded Israeli technology company whose online gambling and other game titles have been played by hundreds of millions of people – has laid off 610 employees, or about 15% of its workforce. It also shut down three of its gaming titles amid a broader restructuring of the company.

In the meantime, we’re going to warn you now: if you’re not interested in anything Twitter does, go to the story lists. For the rest of you, in today’s “All Things Twitter” recap, we’ve got a collection of stories, most of them related to Twitter Blue. Kyle has your details about Blue for Business and that golden check mark you keep seeing while Ivan writes that Twitter will use phone number verification for future Blue subscriber purchases. Aisha got you covered about the Community Notes feature, and Rebekah reports on restarting the verification process and what it means for Apple users.

Here’s your haven for Twitter news: