Venture capital's lack of exits is impacting new deal activity.

• That's a top finding from the latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, which is the gold standard for data on U.S. venture deals.

The big picture: Distributions to limited partners in VC funds haven't been this low since the Great Financial Crisis, sparking what PitchBook refers to as a "stalemate."

• LPs are hesitant (or unable) to back new funds until the liquidity spigot loosens, thus causing venture capitalists to slow their investment pace or stop investing altogether.

By the numbers: U.S. venture capitalists invested $37.5 billion via 2,794 deals during Q3 2024.

• The deal number is 34% lower than in the prior quarter, and 17% below the year earlier period. And it looks even worse beneath the hood, given the plethora of insider and bridge rounds.
• The dollar number is down 32% from Q2, despite a handful of massive AI rounds, and 11.7% lower than the average dollar volume over the prior eight quarters (i.e., the post-pandemic era).
• The number of active investors has fallen by more than 25% year-over-year, and 2024 is set to be the second straight year in which VC fundraising is less than half of 2021 or 2022.

What they're saying: National Venture Capital Association president Bobby Franklin pointed blame at government:

"As evidenced by this quarter's numbers, the FTC's fixation on M&A is continuing to disrupt the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The result, when added to current market conditions, is leaving startups with fewer exit options and making it harder for VCs to invest in innovative new ideas. As campaign season draws to a close in the U.S., the industry is eager to work with the next presidential administration and new Congress to right the ship and reignite American ingenuity."

Reality check: Yes, it's true that President Biden's heightened antitrust scrutiny has scared off some big sales to Big Tech and other strategics.

• But it's also true that VCs and founders have kept chasing the ghost of pandemic-era valuation excess, thus stymieing exit efforts.
• Moreover, Biden had presided over very strong public stock markets that have proven welcoming to IPOs — which is where VCs historically have made their strongest returns — but too many VCs have become so "founder-friendly" as to become lousy fiduciaries.

The bottom line: The VC market's cowardly chickens are coming home to roost.

CoreWeave, a Roseland, N.J.-based cloud computing platform that rents out GPUs via data centers, secured a $650 million revolving credit facility led by JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. No word on terms.

Why it's the BFD: Wall Street wants a piece of the AI revolution, even if that means lending big dollars to relatively young, VC-backed companies.

• It follows last week's news that OpenAI had secured a $4 billion revolving credit facility from many of the same banks.
• Plus a report that Cisco plans to invest in CoreWeave at a $23 billion valuation, which would be a premium to its $19 billion Series C valuation in May.

Other lenders on the CoreWeave facility include Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Jefferies, Mizuho, MUFG, and Wells Fargo.

The bottom line: "Backed by investors including Nvidia, CoreWeave is among the earliest cloud services providers to adopt the company's graphics chips in its data centers." — David Pan, Bloomberg

⚽ Toca Football, a Topgolf for soccer, raised around $100m from individuals like Jim Kavanaugh and Harry Kane. axios.link/3XWCZky

• Farther, a New York-based wealth advisory startup, raised $72m in Series C funding at a $542m post-money valuation co-led by CapitalG and Viewpoint Ventures. axios.link/4dMZBK6

🚑 Suki, a Redwood City, Calif., developer of AI assistants for doctors and patients, raised $70m in Series D funding. Hedosophia led, and was joined by Venrock and insiders March Capital, Flare Capital, Breyer Capital, and inHealth Ventures. axios.link/3Ymz3dh

• Delta, a blockchain network focused on decentralized apps, raised $11m from Figment Capital, Maven 11, Variant, and DBA. axios.link/3BCdP3b

• Muybridge, a Norwegian imaging startup, raised €8m. Fairpoint Capital led, and was joined by insiders RunwayFBU, Idekapita, and Vikingstad Invest. axios.link/3Y4Buks

🚑 Ardian agreed to acquire a majority stake in Vista Vision, an Italian provider of services in ophthalmic and refractive surgery. Sellers include Credem Private Equity. vistavisiongroup.com

🎬 Apollo Global Management and movie studio Legendary Entertainment are in talks to buy out Dalian Wanda Group's stake in Legendary, per Bloomberg. axios.link/4eBhH2Y

🚑 Clayton Dubilier & Rice entered into exclusive talks to buy a 50% control stake in Sanofi's (Paris: SAN) consumer health unit at a €15.5b enterprise value, beating out PAI Partners. axios.link/4eW9GFF

🚑 Fullscript, a portfolio company of HGGC and Snapdragon, acquired specialty lab company Rupa Health, which had raised over $40m from firms like Twine Ventures, 3cubed Ventures and Neythri Futures Fund. axios.link/4eYKv5d

Kava Equity Partners acquired Arrowhead Contracting, an Overland Park, Kan.-based environmental remediation services firm that had been backed by the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Growth Fund. arrowhead-usa.com

🚑 Solis Mammography, an Addison, Texas, mammography center operator owned by Madison Dearborn, acquired Breast Center of Acadiana, a Lafayette, La., breast imaging practice with two locations. solismammo.com

🚑 CAMP4 Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Mass.-based RNA biotech focused on genetic diseases, raised $75m in its IPO. The company priced 6.82m shares at $11, versus plans to offer 5m shares at $14-$16. It will list on the Nasdaq (CAMP), and had raised nearly $190m from firms like Enevate Sciences (19.1% pre-IPO stake), 5AM Ventures (15.9%), Polaris Partners (13.5%), Northpond Ventures (11.6%), a16z (11%), HarbourVest Partners (7.2%), The Kraft Group, and Gaingels. axios.link/4eRhg4o

🚑 Ceribell, a Sunnyvale, Calif., developer of brain monitors to detect hidden seizures, raised $180m in its IPO. The company priced 10.6m shares at $17, versus plans to offer 6.7m shares at $14-$16, for a $578m initial market cap. It will list on the Nasdaq (CBLL), and had raised around $172m from firms like TPG's Rise Fund, Longitude Capital, RA Capital, Redmile Group, and Red Tree VC. axios.link/3Bwk5t8

• Cohen Circle Acquisition I, a SPAC led by blank-check vet Betsy Cohen, raised $200m in its IPO. axios.link/3TCKID6

• Rising Dragon Acquisition, a China-based small-cap SPAC, raised $50m in its IPO. axios.link/3RkASEH

🚑 Upstream Bio, a Waltham, Mass.-based inflammatory disease biotech focused on severe asthma, raised $255m in its IPO. The company priced 15m shares at $17, versus plans to offer 12.5m at $15-$17, and will list on the Nasdaq (UPB). It had raised $400m from firms like OrbiMed, Venrock, Enevate Sciences, Bain Capital Life Sciences, HBM Healthcare Ventures, Maruho, Access Biotechnology, Omega Funds and Decheng Capital. axios.link/4evCtRN

• Apollo Global Management agreed to sell Swedish brake maker Ohlins Racing to Brembo (Milan: BRE) for €370m. axios.link/482HI8R

• Warburg Pincus is seeking to sell a majority stake in Kestra, an Austin, Texas-based network of RIAs and broker-dealers, per Citywire. axios.link/4eEoc51

• Charles Monat Associates, a global life insurance broker for the wealthy, is exploring a sale that could fetch $400m to $500m, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3U3BQ9L

• Nippon Steel (Tokyo: 5401) said it would sell its 50% stake in an Alabama steel plant to JV partner ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT) for just $1, if it succeeds in acquiring U.S. Steel (NYSE: X). axios.link/3ZUI8fE

• Pockit, a British prepaid credit card startup that's raised over $50m in VC funding, agreed to acquire U.K. challenger bank Monese, which has raised nearly $300m from firms like Kinnevik and Augmentum Fintech. Pockit backer Puma Growth Partners will invest £15m into the merger. axios.link/3Y9PFF0

⚾ The Pohlad family hired Allen & Co. to find a buyer for MLB's Minnesota Twins, which they've owned for the past 40 years. axios.link/3zTVOgc

• Triumph Group (NYSE: TGI), a Radnor, Pa., aircraft parts maker with a $1.1b market cap, is exploring a sale, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3YgooSl

• Interlagos, a VC firm led by former SpaceX execs, is targeting $550m for its debut fund. axios.link/48aSg68

• Mill Point Capital of New York raised $1.7b for its third midmarket PE fund. axios.link/3U8zFSq

• Siguler Guff raised over $580m for a new private credit fund focused on small businesses. sigulerguff.com

• HongShan (fka Sequoia Capital China) plans to open a London office to focused on European investments. axios.link/4f3uTO9

• Emerald Lake hired Stephen Burhenn (ex-Ares Management) as a principal, Derrick Lee (Cinven) as a VP, and Katie Slodzinski (Goldman Sachs) as an associate. elcm.com

• Thor Mitchell, a former product manager at Miro and Google, joined European VC firm Balderton as an executive-in-residence. axios.link/3YmnGlB

• Monica Plaza and Adam Naor joined CapitalG as an operating partner and VP of biz dev, respectively. Plaza previously was chief strategy officer at Wonolo, while Naor was North American fintech biz dev lead at Amazon Web Services. capitalg.com

• Citigroup promoted John Chirico to co-head of corporate banking, named EMEA investment banking chief Jens Welter as head of North American investment banking, and put Nacho Gutiérrez in Welter's former job, per Bloomberg. axios.link/4eDlI6V

Charles Beeler, a co-founder of Rally Ventures, passed away in late September.

• His deals included Coupa Software, Compellent Technologies, and NuSpeed, while prior roles included general partner at El Dorado Ventures.

In a statement, Rally Ventures said: "Charles' intelligence, thoughtfulness, entrepreneurial acumen and enthusiasm for living fully left a mark on all who had the privilege of working alongside him, and he will be greatly missed. His absence leaves a profound void in our personal and professional lives, but we are proud to carry part of his legacy forward through Rally Ventures and the businesses he helped build."