🤖 Top Deals You Can’t Miss

1. Bending Spoons, $18.4 billion valuation in its Nasdaq IPO after pricing at $29 a share and raising $1.68 billion.

   

2. QXO, $17 billion acquisition of TopBuild, now closed, creating a building-products distributor with more than $18 billion in revenue.

3. Together AI, $8.3 billion valuation after an $800 million Series C led by Aramco Ventures to scale open-source AI infrastructure.

   

🌟 Dopamine Dealflow

Series B+ & Growth

• Together AI | $800 million | Series C | San Francisco, California
  The company runs a cloud for training and serving open-source models like DeepSeek and Kimi at lower cost than closed systems. Aramco Ventures led the round and were joined by Vista Equity Partners, General Catalyst, NVIDIA, Emergence Capital, March Capital, and SentinelOne's S Ventures.
  

• Stathera | $55 million | Series B | Montreal, Canada
  The company builds silicon timing chips that keep AI data centers in sync, an alternative to legacy quartz parts. Maverick Silicon led the round and were joined by Celesta Capital, BDC Capital, MediaTek Innovation Fund, TXC, and Ultratech Capital Partners.

Series A

• CarbonSix | $40 million | Series A | San Francisco, California
  The startup builds physical AI that teaches factory robots to handle complex, variable tasks through imitation learning. DSC Investment and LB Investment co-led the round and were joined by IMM Investment, Korea Development Bank, SV Investment, and Cortentia.

Seed & Early Rounds

• No new Seed and Early Rounds reported in this window.

Strategic, M&A & Undisclosed

• QXO | $17 billion | Acquisition | Greenwich, Connecticut
  The deal folds TopBuild's insulation and commercial installation business into Brad Jacobs' building-products roll-up, creating a distributor with more than $18 billion in annual revenue.
  

• Kroger | $1.65 billion | Acquisition | Cincinnati, Ohio
  Buying Pittsburgh's Giant Eagle adds 197 supermarkets across five states and defends grocery share against Walmart and Costco, though the deal still needs regulatory clearance and is not expected to close until 2027.

IPOs / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Bending Spoons | $1.68 billion | Nasdaq IPO | Milan, Italy
  The app roll-up behind Evernote, WeTransfer, and Vimeo priced at $29 a share, above its range, for a valuation near $18.4 billion under the ticker BSP.
  

• Lime | $167 million | Nasdaq IPO | San Francisco, California
  The Uber-backed scooter and bike operator sold shares to the public after years of delays, trading under LIME at a valuation around $1.63 billion. Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan led the offering.

VC Funds Raised & Raising

• 8VC | $1.5 billion | Seventh Fund | Austin, Texas
  Joe Lonsdale's firm closed its largest fund yet to back early-stage AI companies in defense, manufacturing, healthcare, and productivity, up from its $998 million sixth fund.

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👓 Read of the Day

The Milan roll-up behind Evernote and WeTransfer is now a Nasdaq company.

Bending Spoons priced its IPO at $29 a share, above its range, raising $1.68 billion and landing an $18.4 billion valuation on its first day trading as BSP. The company buys aging consumer apps, cuts costs, raises prices, and runs them for profit. That playbook turned an $11 billion private valuation in 2025 into an $18.4 billion public one in about a year.

The Strategy
Rather than build new products, the company acquires known brands like Evernote, WeTransfer, Vimeo, and Meetup, then restructures them hard, often with layoffs, and rebuilds margins. It reported roughly $28 million in net income on $601 million in revenue last quarter, a swing from a loss a year earlier.

The Backstory
Founder Luca Ferrari has described the model as a disciplined roll-up run inside a software company, funded until now by private backers at an $11 billion mark. The listing lets early investors cash out and gives the company public stock to fund its next acquisitions.

Why It Matters
A profitable roll-up of unloved apps just cleared $18 billion on Nasdaq, which hands other software buyers a public-market comp and a template for turning declining products into cash-generating assets.

**Read The Whole Story Here**

Other News You Don’t Want To Miss

• Toyota sets up manufacturing joint venture with U.S. air taxi maker Joby
  Toyota will take a 51 percent stake in a new venture to mass-produce Joby's S4 electric air taxi, with pilot production already underway in Marina, California.
  

• Meta considered buying Kalshi before developing its own prediction market app
  Zuckerberg met Kalshi's CEO about a deal, but talks stalled over regulatory risk, and Meta went on to build its own points-based prediction app called Arena.
  

• Even Honda is pivoting to data centers
  The automaker began U.S. production of energy-storage batteries bound for data centers, three months after canceling its American EV programs.
  

• Energy drink and supplements company Nutrabolt picks banks for US IPO
  The maker of C4 Energy and Bloom hired JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America for a listing that could raise up to $1 billion.