The National Football League tomorrow will vote on allowing private equity ownership, making it the last major U.S. sports league to do so.

What to know: This is going to pass. If it wasn't, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wouldn't have scheduled the vote.

• The plan would establish a relatively small group of provisionally approved buyers, with actual transactions needing to be vetted by the league and ratified by other owners.

Zoom in: The primary drivers are skyrocketing team sale prices, and the liquidity opportunities that creates for current owners. Particularly for those who are merely billionaires, rather than multi-billionaires.

• Some deals, however, might be more about growth. For example, a private equity firm injecting capital into a club that wants to renovate its stadium or build mixed-use properties nearby.
• Both the Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans are building new stadiums, while the Cleveland Browns, Chicago Bears, and Washington Commanders are in the planning stages.

Details: Don't be surprised if the NFL announces its approved buyer list after Tuesday's vote.

• Among the names expected to be included are Arctos Partners, Ares Management, and Sixth Street Partners. Plus a consortium consisting of Blackstone, Carlyle, CVC Capital Partners, and Dynasty Equity.
• Keeping the group limited helps the NFL try to maintain its air of exclusivity, but it's possible that an unapproved firm will eventually try to strike a deal. Unclear if a process would be established to add more firms, or if the league will tell owners that there's plenty of capital in the existing pool.

The bottom line: Private equity is getting invited into one of the last areas of the U.S. economy from which it's been excluded.

Eruditus, an Indian startup that partners with universities to provide executive education programs to businesses and individuals, is in talks to raise around $150 million led by TPG at up to a $2.3 billion valuation, per TechCrunch.

Why it's the BFD: The global ed-tech sector has been hammered since the pandemic ended, and India's took a second gut-punch when Byju's collapsed.

The bottom line: This would be a down-round from 2021, when Eruditus was valued at $3.2 billion in a deal co-led by SoftBank and Accel, but it's still a very solid grade on the curve.

• Butlr, a Burlingame, Calif., senor platform for intelligent buildings, raised $38m in Series B funding from Foundry, Pacific Alliance Venture, GS Futures, DNX Ventures, Ray Stata, Joi Ito, Carrier, and Qualcomm. butlr.com

🌎 Sunswap, a British developer of decarbonization solutions for cold-chain logistics, raised £17.3m led by BGF. axios.link/3Z1WzOq

• SatLayer, a BTC re-staking platform developer, raised $8m in pre-seed funding. Castle Island Ventures and Hack VC co-led, and were joined by Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, OKX Ventures, and Mirana Ventures. axios.link/4dEGfaM

🚑 BioIVT, a Baltimore portfolio company of Linden, acquired ZenBio, a Durham, N.C., provider of cell products and services. axios.link/3Z0vTxB

• Hibu, a King of Prussia, Pa., portfolio company of H.I.G. Capital, acquired RevLocal, a Columbus, Ohio provider of digital marketing services to SMBs and multi-location brands. axios.link/3Xli3op

• KKR completed its $4.75b purchase of Varsity Brands, a Memphis-based maker of yearbooks and class rings, from Bain Capital and Charlesbank Capital Partners. axios.link/3RT589N

• Onex Partners acquired a majority stake in Fischbach, a German provider of cartridge packaging solutions for sealants and adhesives. axios.link/4g0OX4P

• Rentvine, an Estero, Fla., provider of property management software for the long-term residential rental market, raised $74m from Mainsail Partners. rentvine.com

🚑 TPG and UnitedHealth (NSE: UNH) are among the suitors for Surgery Partners (Nasdaq: SGRY), a Brentwood, Tenn., surgical facilities operator backed by Bain Capital, per Modern Healthcare. axios.link/4dUK1N2

No major IPOs are expected on U.S. exchanges this week.

• Al Majed for Oud, a Saudi perfume maker, plans to raise $188m in a local IPO. axios.link/3yUdisw

🚑 MBX Biosciences, a Carmel, Ind.-based biotech focused on endocrine disorders, filed for a $100m IPO. The company plans to list on the Nasdaq (MBX), and raised nearly $240m from Frazier Life Sciences (21.9% pre-IPO stake), NEA (14.4%), OrbiMed (14.2%), Deep Track (9.3%), Wellington (8.3%), Norwest Venture Partners (6.4%), and RA Capital (6.4%). axios.link/3Mi2F5V

• Agilysys (Nasdaq: AGYS) bought Book4Time, a Canadian provider of spa management SaaS, from Serent Capital for around $150m in cash. axios.link/3Mmztug

⚡ Engelhart Commodities Trading Partners of London completed its purchase of Trailstone, an Austin, Texas, power trading firm, from private equity firm Riverstone Holdings. axios.link/3Mmbony

• Meritage Group is exploring a sale of Columbia Distributing, a Wilsonville, Ore., beverage distributor that could fetch around $2b (including debt), per Reuters. axios.link/4dyMygb

🚑 Spectris (LSE: SXS) completed its $630m purchase of Micromeritics, a Norcross, Ga.-based provider of equipment to material sciences labs, from SFW Capital Partners. axios.link/3LoM7IQ

⚡ Australian Retirement Trust, the country's second-largest pension, agreed to buy a 33% stake in New Zealand energy distributor Powerco, bringing its ownership to 58%, per AFR. axios.link/4fWcp3f

🚑 CBC of Singapore and Mubadala agreed to buy the Chinese neurology and allergy business of Belgium's UCB (Brussels: UCB) for $680m. axios.link/4cDCeCd

• China Mobile bought a stake in Honor Device, a Chinese smartphone maker spun out of Huawei four years ago. axios.link/472bvhB

• Paul Marshall, a British billionaire who chairs Marshall Wace, is in advanced talks to buy Spectator magazine for more than $130m, per the WSJ. axios.link/3SZTDOD

🚑 McKesson (NYSE: MCK) is in advanced talks to buy Florida Cancer Specialists, a value-based cancer care provider, for around $3.5b, per Bloomberg. axios.link/47082Qy

• Podimo, a Copenhagen-based podcast and audiobook subscription platform that's raised over $200m in VC funding, acquired Dutch podcast producer Tonny Media. axios.link/4dBwhqH

🚑 Siemens Healthineers (ETR: SHL) offered to buy the molecular imaging business of Novartis (NYSE: NVS) for more than €200m. axios.link/3X1TIlR

• CenterOak Partners, a Dallas-based PE firm, raised $1.1b for its third fund. centeroakpartners.com

• G Squared, a Chicago-based growth equity firm, raised $1.1b for its sixth flagship fund. axios.link/4cESzGS

• KKR is weighing a continuation fund for Sylvan, a Kittanning, Pa., producer of mushroom spawn, per Bloomberg. axios.link/4cEzZyI

• Vertex Ventures China raised around $491m for its second RMB-denominated fund. axios.link/3TsaSsf

• Natalie Gramins joined Summit Peak Investments as a partner and head of capital formation. She previously was with TrueBridge Capital Partners. axios.link/3MkbY59

• Craig Kahler joined The Riverside Co. as a partner. He previously was a managing director with Orix Capital Partners. axios.link/3MjREAL

• YL Ventures promoted operating partner Andy Ellis, former chief security officer at Akamai, to partner. axios.link/4799QXx

Toncoin, a cryptocurrency tied to Telegram, shed more than 20% of its market value after the weekend arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in Paris.

• It since has experienced a slight recovery, and currently is the world's 10th largest crytpocurrency with around a $14.2 billion market cap.

Slack message from Axios Crypto author Brady Dale: "Officially, Toncoin is separate from Telegram. Basically, Telegram began work on some technology but the SEC slapped it down so it open sourced its work, TON, or The Open Network, picked it up and finished the work, released Toncoin and Telegram integrated with it."