I asked for one-line 2025 predictions, and you delivered. Here's a sampling:

📈 Deal activity

"Private equity transactions will take advantage of the lower cost of capital to finally move aging assets, with 16% higher deal volumes over 2024 in our base case and the potential to increase as much as 32%." — Mitch Berlin, EY Americas

"Due to significant structural challenges in the IPO market and massive pent-up demand for liquidity, we can expect a dealflow tsunami in 2025" — Brad Bernstein, FTV Capital

"The bar to go public will continue to be very high, with companies needing at least $400-500 million in ARR growing at 30% and close to the Rule of 40." — Jai Das, Sapphire Ventures

"The S&P 500 bubble will burst within seconds of Trump announcing his first tranche of tariffs." — Aydin Kurt-Elli 

"The FAA will give clarity to autonomous drone companies by finally releasing the wording for their much-awaited Part 108 regulation ... making the delivery of meals, packages and drugs by small, autonomous drones fully commercially viable across the U.S." — Patrick Murphy, Tapestry VC

🤖 Artificial Intelligence

"Agentic automation will drive a new wave of startups that reach financial profitability faster than any prior generation of software firms." — Michael Stewart, M12

"The AI investment frenzy will cool and business models with solid unit economics will get the lion's share of venture dollars next year." — Jeremy Burton, Observe

"AI will finally disrupt a major application: email, calendar, CRM, chat, social, or browser. " — Guillermo Rauch, Vercel

"CRMs will go by the wayside as we embrace a new era of AI-driven business management." — Pablo Dominguez, Insight Partners

"AI hype is no longer accepted currency. ROI in dollars only, please." — Andrei Papancea, NLX

"AI will advance health care faster than ever, especially as it touches clinical experiences." — Prateesh Maheshwari, Maverick Ventures

"The appetite for acquisitions of AI companies by strategics and sponsors will grow as the tech becomes more mainstream and every large software solutions provider needs to have a solid offering to stay competitive." — Jon Shalowitz, Union Square Advisors

⚡ Power Play

"The Trump administration will be focused on lowering barriers to new investments in energy sources, and we expect private equity will be positioned to be a first mover in investing in new projects." — John Grand, Vinson & Elkins

"The U.S. will need a 'more of everything' approach to keep up with increasing energy demands next year, which will require extraordinary amounts of capital." — Darpan Kapadia, LS Power

"Nuclear SMRs and fusion investment will result in a massive loss of capital for venture investors and will prove to be for this generation of climate-tech what biofuels were for the last." — Tyler Lancaster, Energize Capital

"Nuclear energy's moment is here—bipartisan support for reactor innovation will only grow as AI demands more power." — Brian Garrett, Crosscut Ventures

💰 Fundraising

"Established firms will continue to attract the majority of new capital, but emerging managers who tend to charge lower fees will get more attention from allocators looking for new areas to place their funds." — David Goldstein, STP Investment Services

"Traditional private equity exit channels will spring back to life, which ultimately will wll have a huge impact on fundraising markets as LPs increase deployment into new funds." — Tim Toska, Alter Domus

"The secondary market will break $200 billion in 2025." — Yann Robard, Dawson Partners

"More than a dozen asset managers will have private credit offerings in ETF or other liquid fund formats, with new distribution and marketing opportunities driving the trend." — Joe Anthony, Gregory FCA

📊 Everything Else

"Real estate incumbents will 'go shopping' in 2025, accelerating acquisitions ahead of a recovery—early moves like CoStar snapping up Matterport, Zillow acquiring Spruce, and Entrata buying Colleen AI signal what's to come." — Nima Wedlake, Thomvest Ventures

"Quantum computing and sensing will step up from science to commercial utility." — Peter Barrett, Playground Global

"Non-bank lenders will see stronger competition from banks." — Marius Silvasan, eCapital

"Truth Social and X will merge." — Sam Marshall

"Japan's startup scene will begin to flourish and garner international attention." — Andrew Schoen, NEA

"Gavin Newsom will petition to have California secede from the Union to be a stand-alone country, and Tim Draper will be named Secretary of State. — Jules Walker, KPMG

"Sh*t show." — Tony Aquilina, Andra Partners

FedEx (NYSE: FDX) said that it will spin off its freight unit into a publicly traded company within the next 18 months.

Why it's the BFD: The to-be-cleaved business is America's largest less-than-truckload carrier, and could be worth more than $30 billion.

• It's also the latest in a recent spate of corporate breakups, including Comcast spinning off its cable networks and Honeywell considering a split of its aerospace group. In short, the markets want companies to be more streamlined.

The bottom line: FedEx investors cheered the news, pushing shares up 10%, even though it may ultimately put more margin pressure on the remaining business.

🚑 Oura, a Finnish maker of smart sleep rings, raised $200m in Series D funding at a $5.2b valuation co-led by Fidelity and Dexcom. axios.link/4gmgSw1

⚡ 1KOMMA5, a German home electrification startup, raised €150m. G2 Venture Partners led, an was joined by CalSTRS, 2150, Norrsken, Hamilton Lane, b2venture, Eurazeo, and eCAPITAL, axios.link/3DrGyZo

• Anysphere, the creator of code editor Cursor, raised $100m in Series B funding at a $2.6b post-money valuation led by insider Thrive Capital, per TechCrunch. axios.link/41JfKOz

⚡ Verde Clean Fuels, a Houston-based provider of low-carbon fuels, raised $50m from Diamondback Energy's Cottonmouth Ventures. axios.link/3VPaVPX

• Backflip, a 3D generative AI startup, raised $30m in Series A funding co-led by NEA and a16z. axios.link/4h2srIL

• Justt, a New York-based chargeback management startup, raised $30m in Series C funding. Zeev Ventures led, and was joined by insiders Oak HC/FT and F2 Venture Capital. justt.ai

• Boon, a developer of agentic AI tools for fleets, raised $20.5m in seed and Series A funding from Marathon and Redpoint Ventures. axios.link/4fqHTwR

• Plume, a real-world asset tokenization platform, raised $20m in Series A funding from Brevan Howard Digital, Haun Ventures, Galaxy Ventures, Lightspeed Faction, Superscrypt, Hashkey, Laser Digital, A Capital, 280 Capital, SV Angel, Reciprocal Ventures, and others. axios.link/4gDUVrK

🚑 Bluenote, a generative AI platform for life sciences regulatory work, raised $10m. Lux Capital led, and was joined by Elad Gil, Anthropic & Menlo Ventures Anthology Fund, McKesson Ventures, Electric Capital, Moxxie Ventures, and Carbon Silicon Ventures. axios.link/41KUU14

• Mindgard, a London-based provider of enterprise AI security, raised $8m. 406 Ventures led, and was joined by Atlantic Bridge, Willowtree Investments, IQ Capital, and Lakestar. mindgard.ai

🚑 Culina Health, a Hoboken, N.J., provider of personalized virtual nutrition care, raised $7.9m in Series A funding. Healthworx led, and was joined by Rethink Impact, Collab Capital, Collide Capital, Vamos Ventures, Tensility Venture Partners, Cake Ventures, and GW Ventures. axios.link/4iLN2T5

• Neverless, a crypto exchange focused on meme coins and small-cap tokens, raised $6.7m in seed funding co-led by Lakestar and Connect Ventures. axios.link/41DmPQA

🌎 Sunairio, a provider of weather and climate modeling software for grid reliability, raised $6.2m, per Axios. Buoyant Ventures led, and was joined by Constellation Technology Ventures and MassMutual Ventures. axios.link/3ZPBwgO

• Hamming.ai, an AI voice agent reliability platform, raised $3.8m in seed funding led by Mischief. hamming.ai

• Buildpeer, a Mexican construction management platform, raised $2.5m in seed funding led by Brick & Mortar Ventures. axios.link/3VMuTL4

• Big Lots (NYSE: BIG) said it doesn't expect to complete its planned sale to Nexus Capital via a prepackaged bankruptcy. axios.link/3DkTDUu

• Blackford Capital acquired Security Fire Systems, a Coppell, Texas-based provider of sprinkler design, engineering, and installation services. securityfiresystems.com

• Cerberus Capital Management acquired Landmark Structures, a Ft. Worth, Texas-based provider of water storage solutions, from Graycliff Partners. axios.link/3BzbUNh

• Halifax Group acquired Q-mation, a Horsham, Pa.-based provider of industrial automation software and hardware. q-mation.com

• Rainier Partners acquired WPAS, a Taft-Hartley-focused third-party administrator, from Periscope Equity. wpas-inc.com

• TA Associates invested in Craigs, a New Zealand-based wealth management firm. craigsip.com

🚑 Commure, a health-care AI company that's raised $700m from VCs, acquired care automation startup Memora Health in an all-stock deal, per Axios Pro. Memora had raised $30m from firms like a16z, General Catalyst, Frist Cressey Ventures, and Transformation Capital.

• Deel, a payroll and HR platform valued by VCs at over $12b, agreed to acquire Assemble, a compensation management company that had raised around $70m from firms like NEA and Emergence. axios.link/4iDaZw1

• MidEuropa Partners sold some of its stake in Croatian bakery Mlinar to Bosqar Invest. axios.link/4gO0pAB

• Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) received EU approval for its $700m purchase of Run.ai, an Israeli AI optimization startup that had raised over $100m from firms like Tiger Global, Insight Partners, TLV Partners, and S Capital VC. axios.link/3VOY2Fj

• Metallicus, a bank-focused blockchain company valued by VCs at $500m, acquired Bonifii, a Littleton, Colo.-based credit union services group. metallicus.com

• Soho House (NYSE: SHCO) said it's received a $1.7b takeover offer from an investor consortium, without disclosing more details. axios.link/3DjEsL1

⚡ Wesfarmers (ASX: WES) agreed to sell industrial gas supply unit Coregas to Nippon Sanso (Tokyo: 4091) for A$770m. axios.link/4gJwRnz

• Accel raised $1.35b for its seventh growth fund, per an SEC filing.

• Augment Ventures of Michigan is raising up to $75m for its fourth fund, per an SEC filing.

• Playground Ventures is raising up to $350m for its fourth fund, per an SEC filing.

• Robin Capital, a German VC firm led by solo GP Robin Haak, raised €15m for its debut fund. axios.link/3DjEd2z

• Solari Capital, a PE firm led by AJ Scaramucci, is raising up to $100m for its third fund, per an SEC filing.

🚑 Sofinnova Venture Partners is raising up to $550m for its seventh fund, per an SEC filing.

• Tribe Capital is raising up to $350m for its fourth flagship VC fund, per an SEC filing.

🚑 Michael Giaquinto is leaving Leerink Partners to join Wells Fargo as a managing director of med-tech banking, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3ByJiDP

• Left Lane Capital promoted Matt Miller to partner. axios.link/49KTkOI

• Kevin Sim left BNP Paribas to lead ING's Asia-Pacific FIG advisory business, per Bloomberg. axios.link/404Au1Z

🚑 Venture Investors Health Fund promoted Jenni Le to principal. axios.link/41IzMbL