Robert Nelsen is one of the most successful biotech VCs ever, having backed over three dozen companies that reached billion-dollar valuations. He's also a thyroid cancer survivor who credits early detection to a company in which his firm, Arch Venture Partners, never invested.

Why it matters: There is a simmering medical debate over the value of full-body scans, like the one Nelsen received, and the growing cohort of venture-backed startups that provide them.

• Advocates argue that such scans can find abnormalities that would typically be missed by a standard physical exam, including conditions that could lead to catastrophic events like aortic aneurysms.
• Opponents argue that such pricey scans have not been shown to be cost-effective, particularly because they can result in false positives that result in unnecessary follow-up care and/or interventions.

What to know: This is a chicken-and-egg situation. More scans are needed to prove out their value — and possibly help get insurance to cover the high costs — but discouraging their usage will result in fewer scans.

• Moreover, additional scans could help train AIs to better identify both acute abnormalities and false positives.
• Some of the providers, like Prenuvo and Ezra, utilize existing MRI technology. Another called Neko Health has developed its own tech stack based on lasers and sensors.

Back to Bob: Nelsen says that he has a family history of cancer, so began getting annual Prenuvo scans around 10 years ago.

• The early scans showed a nodule in his thyroid, but doctors didn't believe it was problematic. Then a scan in 2018 showed that the nodule had changed, which isn't supposed to happen in healthy people.
• "When I went into Stanford for surgery, I asked how many patients they'd had with five years of longitudinal data on their thyroid, and they said I was the first," Nelsen says. "The medical profession is trained to be reactive, not proactive."
• He adds that the scans also discovered a small scar on his brain, which he assumes came from falling off his bike and getting knocked out when he was 11 years-old.

Elsewhere: Hjalmar Nilsonne is CEO of Neko Health, which he co-founded with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. Both of his parents are medical school professors, while his brother is a physician.

• "For my entire life, I've heard that you should only check for things once there is a symptom," he says. "But often that means that the problem has been there for years, and is now at an advanced stage."

The bottom line: One knock on full-body scans is that it's mostly a concierge service being utilized by venture capitalists and other wealthy health hackers. And that's fair.

• But if venture capitalists maintain their interest, then costs might get subsidized to the point where there are enough scans done to determine whether or not it's a useful technology for the broader population.

Bain Capital agreed to buy Chinese data center operator Chindata Group (Nasdaq: CD) for $3.16 billion, beating out a rival bid from China Merchants Capital.

Why it's the BFD: This suggests that U.S. private equity firms aren't too worried about an expansion of President Biden's executive order on outbound investment. Or that the Treasury Department will take a liberal view of what it means to be a company operating in the AI sector.

• Chindata recently issued a press release about how it's "set to ride AI-powered explosion in demand for data storage, processing."

Flashback: Bain Capital, which declined comment, is no stranger to Chindata.

• It carved the business out of Wangsu Science and Technology in 2019 and then merged it with existing portfolio company Bridge Data Centres.
• Bain then took the combined company public in September 2020 at a $4.9 billion market cap but still retains around a 42% stake.

• Anthropic, a SF-based AI research firm, raised $100m from South Korea's SK Telecom. This comes just months after it raised $450m in Series C funding led by Spark Capital. https://axios.link/3KGoueK

• Boston Micro Fabrication, a Chinese 3D printing company, raised $24m in Series D funding led by Guotai Junan Securities. www.bfmtec.cn

⚡ Caelux, a Pasadena, Calif.-based solar coatings startup, raised $12m in new Series A funding. Temasek led, and was joined by Reliance New Energy, Khosla Ventures, Mitsui Fudosan and Fine Structure Ventures. https://axios.link/3sbViWR

• Braid, an SF-based app for creators to communicate with fans, raised $6.8m in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz and Initialized Capital. https://axios.link/45nTDM4

• Amlon, a waste management firm owned by Heartwood Partners, acquired both Paragon Southwest Medical Waste (Baytown, Texas) and Music City Group (Nashville). www.amlongroup.com

🚑 AQUA Dermatology, a portfolio company of Gryphon Investors and GTCR, acquired True Dermatology, a Birmingham, Ala.-based skin cancer surgery and general dermatology services provider. www.aquadermatology.com

• Brookfield Infrastructure and Digital Reality Trust are kicking tires on Cyxtera Technologies, a bankrupt data center operator based in Coral Gables, Fla., per Bloomberg. https://axios.link/3OVbnJq

• Sun Capital Partners agreed to buy Koch Engineered Solutions, a Wilmington, Mass.-based provider of separation technologies, from Koch Industries. www.kochsep.com

• SoftBank is in talks to buy the 25% stake it doesn't directly own in chipmaker Arm from SoftBank Vision Fund 1, ahead of Arm's highly anticipated U.S. IPO next month, per CNBC. https://axios.link/457kpZh

• Better.com, the embattled home mortgage lender, plans to go public next week after Aurora Acquisition (Nasdaq: AURC) shareholders approved the transaction. The initial market cap could be around $8b, representing a premium to a Series F funding in late 2021 from firms like SoftBank. https://axios.link/3DQXENo

• Wanshun Technology Industrial Group, a Chinese marketplace for P2P rides, agreed to go public via AlphaVest Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: ATMV), a SPAC led by execs of Shenzhen Guoxing Capital and V-Stone Capital. https://axios.link/3QwMCV4

⚡Chesapeake Energy (Nasdaq: CHK) agreed to sell its Eagle Ford assets to Silverbow Resources (NYSE: SBOW) for $700m. https://axios.link/449LOZt

• The Daily Mail and General Trust is considering a takeover bid for The Telegraph. https://axios.link/47yDwNt

🚑 Exor, a listed Dutch investment firm, acquired a 15% in Dutch health tech group Philips (AS: PHG) for €2.6b. https://axios.link/3OTy805

• GCP Infrastructure Investments agreed to buy the assets of GCP Asset Backed Income Fund (LSE: GABIG) and is in talks to acquire RM Infrastructure Income (LSE: RMII). https://axios.link/3qvChhw

🚑 Mars, the Mclean, Va.-based pet food and confectionary firm, agreed to buy the veterinary business of German medical diagnostics firm Synlab. https://axios.link/448exxB

• Mastercard (NYSE: MA) agreed to buy a minority stake in the fintech unit of listed African mobile provider MTN Group at a $5.2b valuation. https://axios.link/3KGnZS6

• MSCI (NYSE: MSCI) agreed to buy the 66% stake it doesn't already hold in Hoboken, N.J.-based private asset data provider Burgiss for $697m in cash. https://axios.link/3OSG5mo

• Shuaa Capital's top shareholders are in talks to sell down their stakes in the Dubai-based investment bank, per Bloomberg. https://axios.link/47ws9FL

• US Steel (NYSE: X) has launched a review of strategic alternatives after receiving multiple unsolicited takeover offers. This comes after the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker rejected a $7b cash-and-stock offer from Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE: CLF).

• Lee Counselman is joining Barclays as a managing director of software investment banking, per Bloomberg. He previously was with Moelis & Co. https://axios.link/3DVRprA

• Carolyn Crooks joined the financial sponsors group of Evercore as a senior managing director, after 21 years at Barclays. www.evercore.com

• Christopher Hieb joined Macquarie Capital as a managing director in its customer interaction management group. He previously was with DC Advisory. www.macquarie.com

• Catherine Anne Prideaux rejoined Kainos Capital as a vice president. She had been with the firm before leaving to attend Wharton for her MBA. www.kainoscapital.com

• Sean Rotermund, founder and former CEO of Clarity Software, joined Grovecourt Capital Partners as an operating advisor. www.grovecourtcapital.com

Bain Capital agreed to pay $8.60 per American depository share (reflected in chart above), and $4.30 per ordinary share. The IPO price in late 2019 was $13.50 per ADS.