Private equity just met its match: International soccer.

Driving the news: FIFA has dropped plans to form a commercial subsidiary backed by up to $4.2 billion in private investment, led by Joshua Kushner's Thrive Eternal, less than a week after they became publicly known.

• The deal was subject to ratification by FIFA's 211 national football governing bodies, but it never even got to a final vote. Instead, it was preemptively rejected by regional confederations in Europe (UEFA), North/Central America (CONCACAF), and Asia (AFC).

Zoom in: The transaction terms would have provided each of the 211 countries with an equity stake in the commercial subsidiary, worth around $91 million at the outset.

• Each country also would have had the right, but not obligation, to tender up to $20 million of that equity to outside investors.
• The countries also would begin receiving annual "forward funding" of around $20 million, up from around $8 million.

Behind the scenes: Thrive, which is said to have begun working on this idea around 18 months ago, believed the deal would help international soccer create more competitive balance by providing more financial resources to smaller and/or poorer countries.

• But it totally misread the politics.
• For starters, Kushner and company put almost all their trust in FIFA president Gianni Infantino without recognizing many simply don't trust him.
• Some of this was residue of past FIFA corruption, which Infantino was hired to clean up. But there also was knee-jerk disgust at his toadying up to Trump, which hinted at grift that suddenly became "Gianni and private equity want to steal football."
• Kushner's family ties to Trump only exacerbated the situation, as did a botched rollout — spurred by a pending media leak — that resulted in some countries learning about the plans before they were fully baked.
• Infantino had kept a very tight information circle inside of FIFA when it came to the deal, for the very purpose of preventing such a leak. Then, when it happened anyway, with Thrive also keeping quiet, it looked like he had something to hide.

The big picture: Thrive also didn't really understand the psychology of European soccer, even though private equity is ubiquitous in club team ownership.

• Part of this is just the fan fervor, which makes even the NFL or NBA look like middle school intramurals in comparison.
• The other part was that European countries don't necessarily want more competitive balance, and they've got sway.

The bottom line: Thrive, which recently bought a small stake in MLB's San Francisco Giants, isn't giving up on sports. But it's certainly off this particular pitch, tail between its legs.

AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) has had merger talks with Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY), per the Financial Times.

Why it's the BFD: A tie-up would create the world's fourth most valuable drugmaker, with around $400 billion in combined market cap.

Investor reax: AstraZeneca shares fell more than 6% in London on the news, while Bristol-Myers stock was up around 4% at the open in New York.

The bottom line: An agreement would spark government scrutiny on both sides of the pond.

• U.S. regulators may launch an antitrust investigation focused on cancer drugs.
• U.K. regulators would be concerned about AstraZeneca possibly redomiciling in the U.S., particularly after its float in New York just six months ago.

⚡ Base Power, an Austin, Texas-based home battery startup led by Zach Dell, raised $1b in Series D funding at a $13b post-money valuation from Ribbit, Addition, Valor Equity Partners, and JPMorganChase, Altimeter, D1 Capital Partners, Sands Capital, Coatue, Layer Global, and Energy Impact Partners and insiders Thrive Capital, a16z, Lightspeed, Trust Ventures, and CapitalG. axios.link/4fCrw3G

• Mariana Minerals, a Houston-based mining tech firm, raised $310m in Series B funding at a $1.5b post-money valuation. Khosla Ventures led, joined by a16z, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Greenoaks, Greycroft, Halo Fund, Pax Ventures, StepStone Group, BHP Ventures, Washington Harbour Partners, and Mitsubishi. axios.link/4yVWpHO

• Olix, a U.K. chip designer, raised $300m in Series B funding at a $3.3b post-money valuation. Fundomo led, joined by Hudson River Trading, Reed Hastings, and the U.K. government's Sovereign AI fund. axios.link/4z1rlqr

• Horizon3 ai, an SF-based penetration testing platform, raised $250m in Series E funding at a post-money valuation north of $2b. NightDragon and NEA led, joined by Acrew, Blue Cloud Ventures, EDBI, Demeter Group, PSG, SAIC, Sapphire, Craft Ventures, Prosperity7 Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Ridge Ventures, and SignalFire. axios.link/4xfdwCX

• Zenity, an AI agent security and governance platform, raised $125m in Series C funding. Norwest led, joined by Qumra Capital, SoftBank, Hitachi Ventures and LG Technology Ventures and insiders Vertex Ventures, Third Point Ventures, DTCP, and Intel Capital. axios.link/453zQ6C

• June, an enterprise AI deployment startup, raised $20m in pre-seed funding. Time Ventures led, joined by Michael Dell, Aaron Levie, and George Kurtz. axios.link/4fy0BWO

• Aflabox, an Italian food safety monitoring startup, raised €1.35m in seed funding led by FoodSeed. axios.link/4c1ELbV

• Atlas Air Worldwide, a J.F. Lehman portfolio company, completed its acquisition of a 49% stake in Air Atlanta, a provider of ACMI and aircraft management services. axios.link/4w25tsc

🚑 Curium, a French radiopharma company owned by CapVest Partners, agreed to buy Bedford, Mass.-based rival Lantheus (Nasdaq: LNTH) for around $8b. axios.link/4g9g8wl

• COEO Solutions, a Riata Capital Group portfolio company, acquired NetWolves, a Tampa-based managed IT and network services provider, for $14.5m from Vaso Corp. axios.link/4wxWL5V

🚑 KKR agreed to acquire Integer (NYSE: ITGR), a Plano, Texas-based medical device outsourcer, for $5.7b or $127 per share (4.78% premium to Friday's closing price). axios.link/3S5OVS9

⚡ KKR agreed to buy a 50% stake in TotalEnergies' (Paris: TTE) European onshore solar and wind assets for €1.08b. axios.link/457uasb

• Meanwhile, TotalEnergies is buying Shell's European onshore renewables business.

• Makino Milling Machine (Tokyo: 6135) rejected a $2.5b buyout bid from NSSK, a month after MBK Partners dropped its pursuit due to Japanese government objections. axios.link/4wFyhrE

⚡ Macquarie Capital acquired a 49% stake in a new joint venture with Italian renewable developer Chiron Energy. axios.link/4hb1XIj

• McNally Capital acquired Tenica, a provider of national security and defense solutions. axios.link/4fTAPeF

• Meritus Gas Partners, a portfolio company of AEA Investors, acquired Metroplex Welding Supply, a Dallas-based distributor of industrial gases and welding supplies. axios.link/4cjtW55

• Orendt Studios, a Beyond Capital Partners portfolio company, acquired Straub Collaborative, a Portland, Ore.-based B2B digital and tech services provider. axios.link/45DRGx4

• Platinum Equity completed its acquisition of Tangent Technologies, an Aurora, Ill.-based maker of synthetic materials, from The Sterling Group. axios.link/4bL57iv

• THL Partners acquired a majority stake in PaveMasters, a Poway, Calif.-based provider of pavement maintenance services, from Northern Lakes Capital. axios.link/4wog2WR

Four companies plan to go public this week on U.S. exchanges: Braveheart Bio, Attovia Therapeutics, River City Bank, and Vogenx.

• BlossomHill Therapeutics, a San Diego-based cancer biotech, set IPO terms to 7.8m shares at $15-$17. It would have a $494m market cap, were it to price in the middle, and has raised $257m from Cormorant (15.5% pre-IPO stake), OrbiMed (9.8%), Vivo Capital (7%), Janus Henderson (5.3%), Brahma Capital, BioTrack Capital, and Plaisance Capital Management. axios.link/3Uawe07

🚑 Latigo Biotherapeutics, a Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based developer of non-opioid pain management drugs, set IPO terms to 16m shares at $16-$18. It would have a $1.02b market cap, were it to price in the middle, and had raised over $300m from Westlake BioPartners (29.9% pre-IPO stake), 5AM Ventures (16.5%), Foresite Capital (15%), Blue Owl (7.1%), Deep Track Capital (5.7%), Access Biotechnology, Qatar Investment Authority, and Sanofi Ventures. axios.link/4wAImG2

⚡ Westinghouse Electric, the nuclear energy giant owned by Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco, confidentially filed for an IPO. axios.link/4fPrEeY

• Zepto, an Indian grocery delivery company, valued by VCs at $7b, is delaying IPO plans after raising an undisclosed amount of private funding. axios.link/4fProww

• East West Ave Acquisition, SPAC led by Molly Huang (Seazen Asset Management), raised $100m in its IPO. axios.link/4pPgnQo

• GX Acquisition III, an advanced computing SPAC formed by Trimaran Capital, filed for a $200m IPO. axios.link/4wBZwDd

🚀 Space-Eyes, a Miami-based counter-drone technology and geospatial intelligence company, agreed to go public at a $638m pro forma equity value via a reverse merger with McKinley Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: MKLY). Backers include Eric Trump. axios.link/4yVyj00

• Yellow.ai, an agentic AI platform for service automation, agreed to go public at a $300m pre-money valuation via a reverse merger with Bluerock Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: BLRK). Yellow had raised over $100m from firms like Lightspeed India, Sapphire Ventures, and WestBridge Capital. axios.link/45DR1M4

⚡ Brookfield Infrastructure is weighing a sale of NorthRiver Midstream, a Canadian natural gas group that could fetch around C$7b, per Reuters. axios.link/4fzZsxV

🚑 Datavant, a Phoenix-based health data company owned by New Mountain Capital, is working with JPMorgan on a strategic review, per Axios Pro. axios.link/4ySD7mL

• Orix (Tokyo: 8591) agreed to buy AerFin, a British aerospace parts maker, for around $640m (including debt), from CataCap Management and Schroders Capital. axios.link/4fPrZP2

• Visa (NYSE: V) agreed to acquire BioCatch, an Israeli fraud intelligence company, from Permira for $2.4b in cash. axios.link/4wHc9wY

• American Family Mutual Insurance agreed to acquire Bowhead Specialty Holdings (NYSE: BOW) for around $1.2b in cash, or $34 per share. axios.link/4pP8J8E

• Malayan Banking agreed to buy a 31% stake in Malaysian insurer Etiqa from Ageas for around $1.2b. axios.link/3RFeSI5

• Prysmian (Milan: PRY) agreed to buy Atkore (NYSE: ATKR), a Harvey, Ill.-based electrical manufacturer, for $3.8b. axios.link/4yTE0eJ

• RWS (LSE: RWS) agreed to acquire the parent company of Acolad, a provider of language and content solutions, from Qualium Investissement for £22.4m. axios.link/4pVqJyf

• KKR raised $19.2b for its fifth global infrastructure fund. axios.link/3U9Wjwg

• U.S. Venture Partners is raising up to $400m for its 14th fund, per an SEC filing.

• Blair Jacobson, co-president of Ares Management, joined the Williams College board of trustees. axios.link/4cfTIHk

KKR owned today's headlines, so it gets the chart.

• Massive new infrastructure fund, plus the Integer buyout and a renewables purchase from TotalEnergies.