Private equity firm Lindsay Goldberg is based in Manhattan, thousands of miles away from a criminal fraud investigation in Austria that centers on a former portfolio company called Schur Flexibles.

• Out of sight isn't always out of mind.
• A U.S. federal appeals court last month affirmed a lower court ruling that Lindsay Goldberg must turn over internal documents related to Schur, at the behest of the pissed-off Austrian company that bought most of Schur in 2021 at around a €900 million enterprise value.
• The decision rested on an obscure U.S. statute that allows parties involved in foreign legal proceedings to obtain discovery from U.S. entities.

Why it matters: Lindsay Goldberg is one of midmarket private equity's most venerable firms, founded more than 20 years ago and having raised over $17 billion.

• It's also raising billions for its sixth fund.

Catch up quick: Schur makes flexible packaging for food and pharma.

• Several of its former executives are under advanced criminal investigation — including home raids — by Austrian authorities for alleged embezzlement and inflating EBITDA ahead of majority stake sale to an industrials firm called B&C-Gruppe.
• Lindsay Goldberg is not among those under investigation, but the same cannot be said for one of its European "affiliate partners."
• B&C brought in Deloitte as a new auditor after its purchase, and the accounting firm restated Schur's 2020 financials. Separately, a court declaration from B&C asserts that reports from KPMG and A&M "support allegations that the ... consolidated financial statements for 2018, 2019 and 2020 did not reflect [Schur's] true financial situation."
• B&C already received a record €120 million payout under its warranty & indemnity insurance policy, but that's still less than what it invested in Schur, which it has since turned over to a lender group led by Apollo.

Zoom in: B&C commenced arbitration proceeding in Germany, and likely hopes to find something in Lindsay Goldeberg's internal docs that would prompt the firm to pay up.

• B&C also got U.S. state courts to force three of Lindsay Goldberg's limited partners — large public pension funds in New York, Wisconsin and Louiaiana — to turn over Schur-related documents. A fourth public pension LP, in Texas, won its case.

A spokesperson for Lindsay Goldberg declined comment.

The bottom line: It's still not clear if someone cooked the books at Schur and, if so, who. But we're getting closer to finding out.

Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI) agreed to buy Tex-Mex chain Chuy's (Nasdaq: CHUY) for $605 million in cash.

Why it's the BFD: Darden already has nine well-known restaurant brands, including Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, but this would be its first to focus on Mexican food (or at least a facsimile of it).

By the numbers: Chuy's operates over 100 full-serve restaurants in 15 states, generating $31.5 million in profit on $464 million in 2023 revenue.

• The $37.50 per share purchase price represents a 48.4% premium to yesterday's closing trades.
• The deal, which includes a 30-day "go shop," is Darden's largest purchase since paying $715 million last year for the parent company of Ruth's Chris steakhouses.

The bottom line: "Like much of the casual-dining segment, Chuy's has struggled with declining sales and guest counts in recent months. Same-store sales fell 5.2% year over year in the first quarter." — Joe Guszkowski, Restaurant Business

• Nearfield Instruments, a Dutch maker of metrology and inspection solutions for chipmakers, raised €135m in Series C funding. Walden Catalyst and Temasek co-led, and were joined by Innovation Industries, Invest-NL, and ING M&G Investments. axios.link/4bUjiyB

🚑 CytoReason, an Israeli developer of computational disease models for drug discovery, raised $80m from Nvidia, Pfizer, Thermo Fisher, and OurCrowd. axios.link/3S95Os4

🚑 Truvian Health, a San Diego blood-test developer, raised $74m. Wittington Ventures and Great Point Ventures co-led, and were joined by DNS Capital, Medical Excellence Capital, Tao Capital, TYH Capital, and 7wireVentures. truvianhealth.com

⚡ Peak Energy, a sodium-ion battery maker based in Denver, raised $55M in Series A funding. Temasek led, and was joined by Eclipse, TDK Ventures, Lachy Groom, Tishman Speyer, TechEnergy Ventures, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, and DETV-Scania Invest. peakenergy.com

• Coast, a New York provider of fleet expense management, raised $40m in Series B funding. Iconiq Growth led, and was joined by Thomvest and insiders Accel, Insight Partners, Vesey Ventures, and Avid Ventures. axios.link/4f9VUAg

• GrowUp, a London-based vertical farming startup, has raised £38m from Generate Capital. growupfarms.co.uk

• Thoughtful AI, an Austin, Texas-based revenue cycle automation startup, raised $20m in Series A funding. Drive Capital led, and was joined by Triplepoint Capital. thoughtful.ai

🌎 NovoNutrients, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based fermentation startup, raised $18m in Series A funding co-led by Woodside Energy and CM Venture Capital. novonutrients.com

• Onego Bio, a Finnish precision fermentation startup, raised €14m in Series A funding led by the European Innovation Council. axios.link/468QCRc

• Dopay, an Egyptian neobank, raised $13.5m in Series A extension funding led by Argentem Creek Partners. axios.link/4cIoRBr

🚑 Loci Orthopaedics, an Irish maker of orthopedic medical devices, raised €12.8m in Series A funding from Seroba, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, and the European Innovation Council Fund. lociorthopaedics.com

• ACEL Power, a Canadian electric marine startup, raised C$10m in Series A funding led by Tau Capital. axios.link/3YdizFT

• Shaped, an automated recommendation personalization solution, raised $8m in Series A funding led by Madrona Ventures. axios.link/3WaOFiz

🚑 Kins, a Boston-based hybrid physical therapy practice, raised $7m in Series A funding. Healthworx led, and was joined by Redesign Health, W Health Ventures, and Asahi Kasei Ventures. kins.com

• Tribe AI, a Brooklyn talent and consulting startup, raised $3.25m in seed funding led by Bryce Roberts. axios.link/468uKFD

⚡ ReliON, a Canadian EV infrastructure monitoring startup, raised C$3m. Diagram Ventures led, and was joined by MaRS IAF, AQC Capital, Anges Québec, and Cycle Momentum. axios.link/46btO3e

• Edit Cloud, a British post-production editing platform, raised £2m led by Edge. axios.link/3WcBspw

• Jeff App, a Latvian marketplace for financial inclusion, raised $2m in seed funding led by Presto Ventures. axios.link/46bejIO

🚑 Astor, a woman-focused financial wellness app, raised $1.4m from Stellation Capital, TMV, NFX, and MBA Fund. axios.link/4flgUnR

🚑 Advent International, Clayton Dubilier & Rice, and PAI Partners each submitted first-round bids for Sanofi's (Paris: SAN) consumer health unit, which could fetch up to €15b, per Bloomberg. axios.link/4f6bbSx

• Bain Capital is weighing a new bid for Swiss cloud software firm SoftwareOne (Swiss: SWON), whose board was ousted in April after the company rejected Bain's $3.5b takeover offer, per Reuters. Apax and CVC Capital Partners also are considering offers. axios.link/3WaYgpL

🌎 Cloverleaf Infrastructure, a Houston developer of clean energy-based data centers, secured $300m in equity funding from Sandbrook Capital and NGP Energy Capital. axios.link/3W8Y9uT

• CVC Capital Partners reportedly is prepping a bid for British news outlet The Telegraph. It's also leading a $654m take-private buyout of Comarch, a listed Polish software firm.

• Grant Thornton UK is weighing a stake sale to private equity, just months after its U.S. arm sold a piece to New Mountain Capital, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3Y6LF9A

• H.I.G. Capital acquired Best Trash, a Richmond, Texas provider of municipal solid waste collection and recycling, from Amberjack Capital Partners. best-trash.com

• Human Interest, a 401(k) setup startup, raised $267m in equity and debt funding at a $1.3b valuation co-led by Marshall Wace and Baillie Gifford at a $1.33b valuation. axios.link/3WoARCD

🚑 Med-Metrix, a Parsippany, N.J., portfolio company of A&M Capital Partners, acquired Healthcare Receivable Specialists, a Philadelphia specialized RCM and patient access provider. med-metrix.com

🚑 Osstem Implant, a South Korean dental implant maker owned by MBK Capital and Unison Capital, is in advanced talks to buy Florida-based rival ZimVie (Nasdaq: ZIMV), per Bloomberg. axios.link/4bLZoWB

• Shamrock Capital acquired a film, TV, and music portfolio from Vine Alternative Investments Group. shamrockcap.com

🚑 Zensar, an Indian portfolio company of RPG Group, acquired BridgeView Life Sciences, a Paoli, Pa., provider of IT and operations solutions for life sciences. zensar.com

🚑 Ardent Health, a Nashville-based operator of acute care hospitals, raised $192m in its IPO. It priced 12m shares at $16, versus plans to offer 14.3m at $20-$22. It will list on the NYSE (ARDT), while backers include Ventas (NYSE: VTR) and Equity Group Investments. axios.link/45UizMJ

• TWFG, a Texas-based personal and commercial P&C insurer, raised $187m in its IPO. The company priced at $17, above its $14-$16 range, and will list on the Nasdaq (TWFG). Backers include RenaissanceRE Ventures. axios.link/4bDisqb

• Samsung Electronics agreed to buy Oxford Semantic Technologies, a British knowledge graph startup that raised around $5m from firms like Samsung Venture Investment and Oxford Science Enterprises. axios.link/4fb8wa4

• Capstack, a VC-backed bank-to-loan marketplace, acquired Edge Tradeworks, which focuses on whole-loan trading. axios.link/3LsTwXD

• Deel, a San Francisco-based payroll and HR platform valued by VCs at over $12b, paid more than $100m to buy Hofy, a London remote work management platform backed by firms like Stride.VC. axios.link/467eVPD

• Temenos (Swiss: TEMN) hired Goldman Sachs and Rothschild to explore a sale of fund management unit Multifonds, per Reuters. axios.link/3zPrsLC

• Warner Bros Discovery (Nasdaq: WBD) has been drafting possible breakup plans, per the FT. axios.link/3WpsyGy

• 13books Capital of London raised a £121m fund to invest in fintech startups. axios.link/4d1zNKn

• Kingswood, an LA-based midmarket private equity firm, raised $1.5b for its third fund. kingswood-capital.com

🚑 Hari Arul, co-founder of health-tech company Bold, joined Khosla Ventures as a venture partner. axios.link/3Ltfzxj

• James Carmada joined Star Mountain Capital as a managing director. He previously was with Merrill Lynch. axios.link/3WtyJcA

• Austin Heiman joined Coalesce Capital as a managing director. He previously was a principal with Abry Partners. axios.link/4bQZsEq

• Morgan Stanley reportedly named Tom Miles co-head of global M&A, Andrew Wetenhall deputy head of investment banking, Anish Shah global head of debt capital markets, and Mo Assomull co-head of investment banking. The bank's global capital markets unit will be led by Evan Damast and Henrik Gobel. axios.link/3SfTB4S

🌎 Milo Werner stepped down as a general partner with The Engine Ventures to join DCVC as a general partner focused on climate tech, per Axios Pro. axios.link/3W7fMLy

The chip sector (aka the AI revolution's foundation) got rocked yesterday by a pair of Bloomberg stories:

• Former President Trump arguing in an interview that Taiwan should be required to pay the U.S. for defense, after it "took our chip business from us."
• The Biden administration reportedly considering severe new trade restrictions on chip exports to China.

By the numbers: The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 6.8% of its value, although remains up nearly 30% year-to-date.

• Go deeper: Semiconductors stumble