🧑‍🚀 Top 3 Deals You Can’t Miss

1️⃣ Dirac – raises $10.7M from Founders Fund and Coatue, Dirac has built the first automated work instruction platform to drive Context-Aware Production Planning and build the bridge from engineering to manufacturing execution, partnering with Siemens

2️⃣ Keurig Dr Pepper – $18B acquisition of Peet’s Coffee owner JDE Peet’s, splitting into two beverage/coffee giants.

3️⃣ Thoma Bravo – $1.23B buyout of Verint Systems, adding to its software empire.

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

Series B+ & Growth

• Anthropic (San Francisco, CA) – ~$10B raise (in progress) at a $170B valuation, backed by ICONIQ, TPG, Lightspeed, Spark, Menlo Ventures, QIA, GIC, and more.

• Vertelo (India) – $405M growth round from Macquarie, Allianz Global Investors, Green Climate Fund, and others to electrify fleets.

• Ontic (Austin, TX) – $230M Series C led by KKR for AI-powered security intelligence.

• Stark (Berlin, Germany) – $62M led by Sequoia with 8VC, NATO Innovation Fund, In-Q-Tel, and others for defense tech; valued at $500M.

• restor3d (Durham, NC) – $104M strategic investment, including $65M new equity from Partners Group and $39M from existing shareholders.

• Vaxxas (Brisbane, Australia) – ~$90M round for biotech vaccine delivery technology.

• ProVerum (Dublin, Ireland) – $80M Series B for minimally invasive BPH treatment.

• Twin Health (Mountain View, CA) – $53M Series E led by Maj Invest with Iconiq and Temasek; valued at ~$950M.

• KnowledgeLake (St. Louis, MO) – $65M growth round from Edison Partners for AI workflow automation.

• Kasa (New York, NY) – $40M growth round led by SLW for tech-enabled hospitality.

• AgendaPro (Santiago, Chile) – $35M growth led by Riverwood Capital to expand its LatAm appointment-based SaaS.

• Pylon (San Francisco, CA) – $31M Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz for B2B support platform.

• The Better Meat Co. (Sacramento, CA) – $31M Series A led by Future Ventures and Resilience Reserve for plant-based meats.

• EdgeCortix (Tokyo, Japan) – $100M Series B from Yanmar Ventures, Pacific Bays, and others for AI semiconductors.

Series A

• Holo (Dubai, UAE) – $22M Series A for fintech home-buying platform.

• Nest Health (New Orleans, LA) – $12.5M+ Series A for in-home Medicaid family care.

• Qunova Computing (Daejeon, South Korea) – $10M Series A with S Ventures, Korea Development Bank, Quantum Ventures Korea, and others for quantum-enabled software.

• Irys (London, UK) – $10M Series A for blockchain solutions.

• Molecular You (Vancouver, Canada) – $5M Series A led by Voloridge Health for molecular medicine & preventive health.

• Wisdom (New York, NY) – $21M Series A led by Permanent Capital for AI-powered dental revenue cycle management.

Seed & Early Rounds

• Wallround (Berlin, Germany) – €4.2M Seed (~$4.5M) led by Revent with Vonovia, Founders Factory, and others for renovation software.

• Oway (San Francisco, CA) – $4M Seed for AI-enabled freight marketplace.

• Genow (Darmstadt, Germany) – €1.65M Seed (~$1.8M) for enterprise knowledge interaction platform.

• SugaROx (Harpenden, UK) – £1M (~$1.2M) Seed extension with backing from The Mosaic Company, UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund, and Regenerate Ventures.

Strategic & Undisclosed

• Keurig Dr Pepper – $18B acquisition of JDE Peet’s, then splitting into beverage and coffee businesses.

• Cenovus Energy (Canada) – $5.7B acquisition of MEG Energy in a cash-and-stock deal.

• Air Liquide – $3.3B acquisition of DIG Aergas (South Korea) from Macquarie, including debt and cash.

• Terumo (Japan) – $1.5B acquisition of OrganOx (UK), an organ medtech company.

• Thoma Bravo – $1.23B acquisition of Verint Systems, adding call center software to its portfolio.

• TAQA (Abu Dhabi) – $1.2B acquisition of GS Inima (Spain) for eco-friendly wastewater.

• Databricks – acquiring ML startup Tecton (last valued at $900M in 2022).

• Coca-Cola – exploring sale of Costa Coffee, acquired in 2018 for $5B.

• AI Data Center Revolution (Global) – $13.6B build-out projected for hyperscaler AI workloads.

• Elon Musk/xAI – launches Macrohard, a generative AI software venture aimed at Microsoft.

• xAI – open-sourced Grok 2.5, boosting transparency and adoption.

• Meta x MidJourney – partnered to co-develop advanced image/video models.

• Spirit Airlines (Miramar, FL) – brought in PJT Partners to explore options after failed turnaround.

• Applied Value Group (New York, NY) – growth investment from Trivest Partners.

• Aikido Security (Belgium) – acquired Trag (San Francisco, CA), an AI-native code quality startup.

IPOs, Direct Listings, etc.

• Netskope (Cybersecurity) – expected to raise $500M+ at a $5B valuation in IPO.

• WaterBridge Infrastructure (US, backed by Five Point Infra) – filed for IPO in the US.

• Hann Holdings (Philippines) – postponed $207M IPO due to market conditions.

• Avanse (India, Warburg Pincus-backed) – considering delaying IPO amid slowing demand.

• Cevian Capital – acquired 3% stake in AkzoNobel (Netherlands paints giant).

VC Funds Raised & Raising

• TPG – seeking to raise new Asia mid-cap buyout fund.

• Shift Invest (Netherlands) – €92M (~$100M) first close of SHIFT IV (impact/ESG).

• Cybernetix Ventures (Boston, MA) – raising up to $100M for Fund II (robotics & AI).

• Clean Growth Fund (London, UK) – £49M (~$58M) first close of Fund II (climate tech).

• Curate Capital (Houston, TX) – raising $50M Fund II (female-led CPG).

• Ventures.eu (Lisbon, Portugal) – launched €30M (~$32M) inaugural fund.

Founders: Want to be featured on @tradedvc? → traded.co/submit/vc

📚 Read of the Day

Elon Musk Launches “Macrohard” to Take on Microsoft 💻⚡

The Tesla and SpaceX chief is doubling down on AI software, unveiling a new venture designed to rival Microsoft head-on.

The Big Reveal
Musk announced Macrohard, a “purely AI software company” under his xAI umbrella, aimed at building hundreds of generative agents capable of simulating entire software products. The tongue-in-cheek name belies a serious ambition: challenging Microsoft’s dominance in enterprise and developer tools.

Powered by Colossus
Macrohard ties directly into xAI’s Colossus 2 supercomputer project in Memphis, already among the most powerful GPU clusters in the world. Musk has confirmed plans to acquire millions of Nvidia GPUs, placing xAI in direct competition with OpenAI, Meta, and Google in the compute arms race.

The Backstory
The idea stems from Musk’s long-stated vision of multi-agent AI, where specialized bots collaborate inside virtual machines to deliver finished products. It’s the same philosophy behind xAI’s Grok chatbot — only now scaled to an entire software ecosystem. Musk even teased the name years ago with “Macrohard >> Microsoft.”

Why It Matters
Macrohard positions xAI not just as another chatbot player, but as a full-stack AI software rival to Big Tech. If successful, it could redraw the lines of competition in productivity, cloud, and developer tools — sectors where Microsoft has long been untouchable.

👉 Read The Whole Story Here

📰 News You Don’t Want To Miss

💻 Elon Musk takes aim at Bill Gates with new AI venture “Macrohard” — a direct shot at Microsoft’s dominance

🇺🇸 Intel agrees to U.S. government 10% stake worth up to $8.9B, making Washington its largest shareholder

✈️ Spirit Airlines hires advisers to explore options after turnaround struggles

🏗️ AI-driven data center revolution: $13.6B empire rising over the next decade

🤖 Musk’s xAI open-sources Grok-2.5, pushing transparency in the AI race

🎨 Meta partners with MidJourney to build advanced AI models for images and video