The fire sale of Silicon Valley Bank is nearly complete, a scant 14 months after the lender's spectacular collapse.

Why it matters: This concerns the fate of SVB's venture capital business, called SVB Capital, which still manages around $9.8 billion in assets for limited partners.

• SVB Capital wasn't included in the original sale of SVB's lending and wealth management units to North Carolina-based bank First Citizens, nor last fall's sale of SVB's securities unit to management.

The latest: SVB's bankrupt parent company has agreed to sell SVB Capital to a new entity backed by Brookfield and Sequoia Heritage, subject to bankruptcy court approval.

• It's to be affiliated with Pinegrove Capital Partners, a firm formed in 2023 to focus on VC continuation vehicles and other venture liquidity solutions.
• Pinegrove and SVB Capital will operate independently, but are expected to collaborate.

Deal details: The upfront sale price is $340 million in cash, according to court documents.

• There's also around a $15 million termination fee were a superior offer to be accepted.

Look ahead: SVB Capital views this deal as an opportunity to reorganize and restart, with one source expressing excitement about the flexibility of operating outside of a publicly traded, federally chartered bank (let alone outside the bankrupt, tarnished shell).

• It's expected to originate new deals, as evidenced by an earnout provision tied to future fundraising hauls.
• That likely means it will hire new staff, or perhaps rehire some folks who were laid off earlier this year when it appeared that SVB's creditors would hold onto SVB Capital and manage it out.

The bottom line: SVB Capital is the bankrupt parent's last major operating unit, although it still holds a small research firm (MoffettNathanson) and a lot of net operating losses.

Sony and Apollo Global Management have offered to buy Paramount Global for $26 billion in cash.

Why it's the BFD: This is the latest twist in a process that's had the raucousness of a "SpongeBob" episode.

Behind the scenes: Under terms of the bid, Sony would hold a majority stake in Paramount, with Apollo taking a minority position.

• It reportedly was submitted on Wednesday, while Paramount's exclusive negotiating window with Skydance Media — backed by RedBird Capital Partners and KKR — closes later today.
• Apollo previously submitted a $26 billion takeover bid on its own, before which it offered $11 billion for just Paramount's film and TV studio.
• The new offer includes assumption of around $14.6 billion in Paramount debt.

The bottom line: Control shareholder Shari Redstone earlier this week ousted Paramount CEO Bob Bakish, ostensibly because he opposed the Skydance deal. Now, however, Sony and Apollo have given her $26 billion reasons to let the Skydance exclusivity lapse.

🚑 Karius, a Redwood City, Calif., provider of blood-testing for infectious disease, raised $100m in Series C funding. Khosla Ventures, 5AM Ventures and Gilde Healthcare co-led, and were joined by insiders SoftBank, General Catalyst, HBM Healthcare Investments, Blue Water Life Sciences, Innovation Endeavors, and Waycross Ventures. axios.link/4dpkqfW

🌎 Stargate Hydrogen, an Estonian provider of electrolyzers for green hydrogen, raised €42m in seed funding co-led by UG Investments and IPCEI. axios.link/4a1DRs4

• Lamini, a Palo Alto, Calif., enterprise platform for deploying gen AI, raised $25m. AMD Ventures led, and was joined by First Round Capital, Amplify Partners, Andrew Ng, Dylan Field, Drew Houston, Andrej Karpathy, and Bernard Arnault. axios.link/3UGU2GK

🚑 Livara, a value-based care company for patients with musculoskeletal conditions, raised $15m in Series B funding. A1 Health Ventures led, and was joined by insiders Polaris Partners, Providence Ventures, and Martin Ventures. axios.link/3Uh9B6A

🚑 Piction Health, a Boston virtual dermatology clinic, raised $6m in seed funding from Argon Ventures, Techstars, Good Growth Capital, Flare Capital, and Bayless Healthcare. pictionhealth.com

• Danti, an Atlanta-based search engine for Earth data, raised $5m. Shield Capital led, and was joined by Tech Square Ventures, Humba Ventures, Leo Polovets, Space.VC, and Radius Capital. axios.link/3UH71Iv

• Agora, a cross-chain governance platform, raised a $5m seed led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Seed Club, Coinbase Ventures and others. axios.link/3y22fN2

• Mother Science, a biotech skincare brand, raised $3.5m led by Greycroft. axios.link/4b0xPtb

• Renda, a Nigerian ecommerce order fulfillment startup, raised $1.9m led by Ingressive Capital. axios.link/3w9KElQ

• Birdwingo, a Czech investment app for teens, raised €1.2m led by Bienville Capital. axios.link/4dkEfF0

🚑 Avel eCare, a portfolio company of Aquiline Capital Partners, acquired Horizon Virtual, a St. Cloud, Minn., provider of virtual hospitalist services. avelecare.com

• Breck Partners acquired NPX One, a maker of polystyrene trays for fresh protein, from Atlas Holdings. npxone.com

• Charger Investment Partners acquired Wolf-Gordon, a New York maker of interior surface products, from Saw Mill Capital. wolfgordon.com

• Cinven is seeking to refinance British commercial equipment firm JLA after takeover bids fell short of £1b+ expectations, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3wlReWh

• Clearlake Capital and Francisco Partners are in advanced talks to buy the software integrity unit of Synopsys (Nasdaq: SNPS) for more than $2b, per Reuters. axios.link/3Up0ZuT

⚡ Energy Capital Partners is in advanced talks to buy Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure (Nasdaq: AY), a British owner of renewable power assets, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3UIppAU

Hypax acquired Precision Colour Printing, a British B2B commercial printer, from Claverley Group. pcpltd.net

• KKR completed its purchase of around a 50% stake in Cotiviti, a South Jordan, Utah health analytics firm, from Veritas Capital (which retains the other 50%).

🚑 Knox Lane acquired All Star Health Care Solutions, a Deerfield Beach, Fla., staffing firm. allstarhealthcaresolutions.com

• Lone Star Funds completed its purchase of Eriks, a Dutch industrial components distributor, from SHV Holdings. eriks.com

• Maximum Effort Investments led an investment in Homage, a Columbus, Ohio, provider of vintage-inspired sports and licensed apparel. homage.com

• Pro-Vac, a Puyallup, Wash., portfolio company of Gallant Capital Partners, acquired Hydromax, a provider of hydro excavation services in South Texas. pro-vac.com

• Rosemont made a minority investment in Northside Capital Management, a Hood River, Ore., outsourced investment manager for ultra-high net worth families. northsidecap.com

• Sycamore Partners has expressed interest in taking Nordstrom (NYSE: JWN) private, per Reuters. axios.link/4bnAH2S

• Tailwind Capital invested in GrayMatter, a Pittsburgh-based provider of technical engineering services for automation-related issues. graymattersystems.com

• TruFood Manufacturing, a Pittsburgh-based snack food maker owned by Mubadala Capital, acquired Bar Bakers, a Los Alamitos, Calif., nutritional snack maker. truefoodmfg.com

• Exosens (fka Photonis), a French night-vision tech maker owned by Groupe HLD, is prepping a Paris IPO that could raise €300m-€400m, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3UGnUDk

• Games Global, a provider of online betting and casino games, set IPO terms to 14.5m shares at $16-$19. It would have a $2b market cap, were it to price in the middle, and plans to list on the NYSE (GGL). In 2022, Games Global was in talks to go public via SPAC. axios.link/3UI3xp8

• Churchill Capital Corp IX, a SPAC led by Michael Klein, raised $250m in its IPO. It's Klein's first SPAC IPO in nearly three years. axios.link/4a3liDS

🚑 Swander Pace Capital sold Functional Formularies, a West Chester, Ohio, provider of shelf-stable feeding tube formulas, to Danone. functionalformularies.com

⚡ ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) completed its $60b deal for Pioneer Natural Resources, but the FTC's unusual approval requirement has raised questions about the fate of future oil mergers.

• Glencore (LSE: GLEN) is considering a takeover bid for mining giant Anglo American (LSE: AAL), just days after Anglo rejected a $39b approach from Australia's BHP Group (ASX: BHP), per Reuters. axios.link/3UKrRXq

• Johnson Controls International (BYSE: JCI) is weighing a sale of its ADT alarms unit, per Reuters. axios.link/3WrogyW

🚑 Latticework, a health care-focused PE firm based in Dallas, raised $345m for its second fund. latticeworkcapital.com

• Roger Zhang is joining Granite Asia, the former Asia unit of GGV Capital, as a partner focused on private credit. He previously was with Blackstone. axios.link/4dpEr5R

The U.S. economy added 175k jobs in April, missing expectations, while the unemployment rate held steady at 3.8%.

• March revisions were higher, while February revisions were lower.
• Average hourly earnings rose 0.2% in April, putting the year-over-year increase at 3.9%. For inflation context, CPI rose 0.4% in April and the year-over-year mark is 4.9%.

Go deeper.