🧑‍🚀 Top Deals You Can’t Miss

1️⃣ SoftBank Group – $5.8B Nvidia block sale provides capital for new AI bets.

2️⃣ Apollo Global Management – $2.55B acquisition of La Liga’s Atlético Madrid, the second-largest soccer club deal on record.

3️⃣ Iambic Therapeutics – $100M raise fueling its AI-driven drug discovery engine.

🧠 Dopamine Dealflow

🌳 Series B+ & Growth

• Iambic Therapeutics, a San Diego, CA-based AI drug discovery company, raised $100+ million in growth funding. Abingworth and Ascenta led, joined by Alexandria Venture Investments, Illumina Ventures, Mubadala, QIA, Regeneron Ventures, Sequoia, and others.

• Scribe, a San Francisco, CA-based AI workflow documentation platform, raised $75 million in Series C funding. StepStone Group led with participation from Redpoint, Tiger Global, and Amplify.

• Gamma, a San Francisco, CA-based AI presentation platform, raised $68 million in Series B funding. Andreessen Horowitz led with Accel and Uncork Capital.

• AirOps, a New York, NY-based enterprise AI search and automation company, raised $40 million in Series B funding. Greylock led.

• Trip, a London UK-based functional beverage brand, raised $40 million in growth funding. Coefficient Capital led with celebrity investors Joe Jonas, Alessandra Ambrosio, Paul Wesley, and Ashley Graham.

• Fastbreak AI, a Charlotte, NC-based AI-driven sports operations software firm, raised $40 million in Series A funding. Greycroft and GTMfund led with participation from athletes and leagues.

🚀 Series A

• 1Mind, a San Francisco, CA-based AI sales agent platform, raised $30 million in Series A funding. Battery Ventures led with Wing VC, Operator Collective, and others.

• NextSense, a Mountain View, CA-based neurotech startup building EEG smartbuds, raised $16 million in Series A funding. Ascension Ventures led with Satori Neuro and Corundum Neuroscience.

• CampusKnot, a Starkville, MS-based AI teaching assistant platform, raised $1.1 million from Tulane Ventures, Boot64 Ventures, and regional funds.

🌱 Seed & Early Rounds

• Valar Atomics, a Seattle, WA-based advanced nuclear startup, raised $19 million in Seed funding. Riot Ventures led with AlleyCorp, Initialized Capital, Day One Ventures, and Steel Atlas.

• Evolve, a Dover, CO-based AI learning platform, raised $1 million in Seed funding. AltaIR Capital led with 500 Global, ULTRA.VC, and Funders VC.

• AI Score, a London, UK-based AI safety platform, raised over $1 million in Pre-Seed funding.

• Gliding Deer, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based gaming studio behind Bingo Drive, signed a $7 million investment term sheet with Wyndham Wealth.

• Partner Robotics, a Beijing, China-based robotics simulation company, raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding.

• Lighthouse Canton, a Singapore-based investment firm, raised $40 million in strategic funding.

• MyPhysicianPlan, a North Brunswick, NJ-based health tech company, raised an undisclosed Seed round.

• Arrow Holding, a Dubai, UAE-based HR tech and staffing group, received an investment from AfricInvest Fund IV.

🤝 Strategic, M&A & Undisclosed

• Kapitale, a Miami, FL-based direct funder, secured a $25 million credit facility from Pier Asset Management.

• First Circle Capital, a Casablanca Morocco and Kampala Uganda-based VC firm, secured $6 million from IFC.

• Paystand, a Santa Cruz, CA-based blockchain payments network, acquired Bitwage, a San Francisco-based cross-border payroll platform.

📈 IPOs / Issuances / Block Trades

• SoftBank Group executed $5.8 billion of Nvidia stock sales through block trades to rebalance its portfolio.

💸 VC Funds Raised & Raising

• Glasswing Ventures, a Boston, MA-based early-stage AI fund, closed Fund III at about $203 million with LPs including endowments and family offices.

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

📚 Read of the Day

⚽ Apollo Buys Atlético Madrid for $2.55 Billion

Private equity’s biggest play yet in European football.

What Happened: Apollo Global Management acquired a majority stake in Atlético Madrid for $2.55 billion, the second-highest control sale ever for a soccer team.

The Strategy: Apollo plans to grow the club’s digital reach, sponsorships, and global merchandising to bring U.S.-style scalability to European sports.

Why It Matters: Top-tier sports IP is becoming an institutional asset class. Expect more private equity plays across global football.

👉 Read The Whole Story Here

💹 SoftBank Sells Entire Nvidia Stake for $5.83 Billion

Vision Fund cashes out of the AI rally to reload for the next wave.

What Happened: SoftBank sold its entire $5.83 billion Nvidia position, capturing record gains and freeing up capital for new generative AI infrastructure bets.

Powered By: Nvidia’s 200 percent stock surge since 2024 gave SoftBank the liquidity to reallocate toward chip startups and private AI investments.

Why It Matters: Masayoshi Son continues to reposition SoftBank as a long-term AI powerhouse. The sale signals confidence in early-stage AI markets over public equity exposure.

👉 Read The Whole Story Here

📰 News You Don’t Want To Miss

🎩 Slow Ventures Holds a ‘Finishing School’ to Help Founders Learn to Be Fancy – The VC firm hosted an etiquette class for founders on topics like handshakes and public speaking.

⚡ Rivian Gives RJ Scaringe a New Pay Package Worth Up to $5 Billion – The EV maker replaced a 2021 award with a new performance-based compensation plan.

🛍️ Amazon Launches Low-Price Standalone App “Amazon Bazaar” in Dozen+ Markets – Amazon expands to emerging markets with a low-cost shopping platform.

🗺️ Google Maps Releases New AI Tools to Let You Create Interactive Projects – Generative AI now powers user-created guides and story-like visual maps.

💡 AI PowerPoint-Killer Gamma Hits $2.1B Valuation, $100M ARR – Gamma’s profitable growth cements it as a top AI-native productivity player.

🤝 Nebius and Meta Sign $3B AI Infrastructure Deal – The five-year capacity agreement marks Nebius’s second major hyperscale partnership.

💰 Anthropic Is on Track to Turn a Profit Much Faster Than OpenAI – Internal data shows leaner costs and faster scaling at the rival AI lab.

📱 iPhone Air Sales Are So Bad That Apple Is Delaying the Next-Gen Version – Weak sales have pushed Apple to postpone the thin iPhone Air refresh.

🩺 OpenAI Is Weighing a Move Into Consumer Health Apps – The company may enter digital health with AI-driven personal records.