Last week the relatively small acquisition of niche online fitness business The Healthy Mummy by low-profile public company Halo Food Co was easy to miss, but the $17 million buyout has so many peculiarities that it is surely a candidate for most intriguing tech deal of the COVID-19 era.

Halo, until recently known (or equally unknown) as Keytone Dairy, is a food business with growing revenue but no real profit. Worth just $25 million, it has a remarkably well-credentialed chairman in Peter James, who also chairs tech star Nearmap.