EasyJet agrees to £5.7bn takeover by US firm No-frills airline EasyJet has agreed to be taken over in a £5.7bn deal by US firm Apollo after a rival bidder dropped out. The takeover was agreed after US investment firm Castlelake, which had made a series of offers for the carrier, said it was withdrawing from the bid battle. Apollo said it wants to help the airline grow and that it does not intend to cut any jobs in the first 12 months after the takeover has been completed, implying that passengers can expect largely the same service. EasyJet is one of Europe's largest airlines. It employs more than 19,000 people, and flies around 1,200 routes across 35 European countries.

At the end of last year, EasyJet launched a new feature on their app which could cure Instagram travel envy forever. Look&Book helps you identify where an Instagram photo was taken (provided it's in Europe) and which flights you need to book in order to get there. A savvy move indeed considering that 37% of millennials are influenced by social media when planning a trip. Look&Book acts as so much more than just an easy way to find and book holidays however. It's also a perfect example of the clever ways companies are using machine learning to attract new customers and generate business they probably wouldn't otherwise.

The airline is the sixth corporate backer of the startup hot house created by renowned entrepreneurs Brent Hoberman and Henry Lane Fox - both of Lastminute.com fame - with the ambitious goal of creating 200 successful startups over the next five years. That will include investing in and helping scale five early stage startups each year, as well as co-founding two companies itself. "Connecting the talented easyJet team with the next generation of disruptive entrepreneurs will only continue to drive fresh thinking and uncover new opportunities," said easyJet chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall. Hoberman added: "We are confident that together we can support the next generation of innovators in travel leveraging digital scale, data, personalisation, virtual reality, artificial intelligence (AI), ecommerce breakthroughs and fintech." It joins five other corporate backers working with Founders Factory, including Aviva for fintech, L'Oreal for beauty technology and a deal with China's CSC inked just last week to foster startups working on AI. "easyJet coming into Founders Factory as our sixth and final corporate investor represents a critical milestone," said Henry Lane Fox. "With some of the leading brands and audience owners in the world as investors, we are able to execute on our vision of exploiting new emerging technologies to redefine industries." It has also done deals with Holtzbrinck publishing group in the area of education and the Guardian Media Group in media.