Oak Investment Partners is one of the biggest winners from Circle's IPO, with shares worth in excess of $3 billion.

• It has a convicted crook to thank. Except that he might be dead.

Catch up quick: Oak first backed Circle in 2014, as part of a $17 million Series B round. Overall, it appears to have invested less than $30 million — which means the current value more than repays the $2.5 billion fund out of which it invested.

Zoom in: Oak's deal lead was Iftikar Ahmed, a general partner who'd come to the Connecticut-based firm more than a decade earlier after stints with Goldman Sachs and Fidelity.

• One year later, Ahmed was charged by the SEC with insider trading after being tipped off about a potential merger.
• But the big bombshell came soon after when Oak learned that Ahmed was robbing the firm itself — via a scheme whereby he directed Oak investments into accounts that he controlled.
• He also convinced his partners to invest in a company without disclosing that he already had a personal stake in the business.
• Oak fired Ahmed, who ultimately would face federal fraud and state embezzlement charges.

Behind the scenes: Ahmed fled the country, even though the feds were in possession of his passport, leaving behind his wife and three kids.

• Eventually came word that Ahmed had been detained in India and was allegedly unable to return to the U.S., where he was nonetheless convicted.
• His wife, Shalini, who also had been a Goldman Sachs banker, has continued fighting in court to recover some of the family's frozen assets.
• In a brief filed last month, Shalini claims that she and the government were notified in January of Ifty's passing, and received a copy of the death certificate.
• She adds: "The government has questioned the validity of the certificate. Shalini understands there is an ongoing investigation."

Zoom out: Oak would never raise another fund, with the Ahmed saga having wrecked LP confidence, although some of its partners would successfully launch a new firm called Oak HC/FT.

• Circle founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire declined to discuss how he was first introduced to Ahmed, with a company spokesperson citing IPO quiet period restrictions.

The bottom line: Ifty Ahmed was a very good venture capitalist, albeit a corrupt one.

• In addition to Circle, his deals include Airespace (acquired by Cisco), GMarket (acquired by eBay), and Kayak (acquired by Priceline).
• What's always been confounding is why someone so wealthy would risk it all for just a bit more, particularly if he believed in the startups he was backing. The Circle deal ultimately might have paid him hundreds of millions of dollars.
• Now we'll never know. Maybe.

Halter, a New Zealand-based maker of smart cow collars that enable virtual fencing for cattle ranches, raised US$100 million in Series D funding led by Bond at a $1 billion valuation.

Why it's the BFD: The round is designed to further enable U.S. expansion, at a time when many cattle ranches are facing labor shortages due to increased immigration enforcement.

Other investors include NewView, Bessemer Venture Partners, DCVC, Blackbird, Icehouse Ventures, and Promus Ventures.

The bottom line: Ag-tech venture capital has been relatively weak so far in 2025, per PitchBook, but robotics and smart field equipment have been a bright spot.

• Digital Asset, maker of the privacy-focused Canton blockchain, raised $135m. DRW Venture Capital and Tradeweb Markets led, joined by BNP Paribas, Circle Ventures, Citadel Securities, DTCC, Goldman Sachs, IMC, Liberty City Ventures, Optiver, Paxos, Polychain Capital, QCP, Republic Digital, 7RIDGE, and Virtu Financial. axios.link/45xDqHv

• Decagon, an SF-based conversational AI startup for enterprise customer service, raised $131m in Series C funding at a $1.5 b valuation. Accel and a16z led, with participation from A*, Bain Capital Ventures, BOND, Avra, Forerunner, and Ribbit Capital. axios.link/3G9Pcxs

🚑 ForSight Robotics, an Israeli developer of ophthalmic robotic surgery solutions, raised $125m in Series B funding. Eclipse led, joined by Fred Moll, the Adani Group, and Reiya Ventures. axios.link/4k3RGLu

🚑 Neuron23, a South SF-based developer of precision medicines for genetically defined neurological and immunological diseases, raised $96.5m in Series D funding. Backers include Westlake Village BioPartners, SoftBank, Redmile Group, Blue Owl, Kleiner Perkins, HBM Healthcare Investments, and Acorn Bioventures. neuron23.com

• Botpress, a Montreal-based platform for building and deploying AI agents, raised US$25m in Series B funding. Framework led, joined by Inovia Capital, Deloitte Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, and Decibel. axios.link/4nvgrn4

• Zeelo, a London-based smart bus startup focused on commuters and schools, raised $23m in Series B funding. Blue Earth Capital led, joined by Direttissima Growth Partners and Peter Bauer's family office. axios.link/40l8W87

🌍 Enter, a German provider of energy-efficient building renovations, raised €20m in Series B funding from Coatue, Target Global, Noa, Partech, Foundamental, and SE Ventures. axios.link/4ndnbFM

🚑 NPHub, a job and clinical rotation matching platform for nurse practitioner students and professionals, raised $20m from Edison Partners, per Axios Pro. axios.link/44gCMvR

• Paraform, an SF-based hiring marketplace, raised $20m in Series A funding. paraform.com

• Veda, a DeFi vault platform, raised $18m. CoinFund led, joined by Coinbase Ventures, GSR, Maelstrom, Animoca Ventures, Mantle EcoFund, BitGo, Credibly Neutral, Draper Dragon, Heartcore, PEER VC, and Relayer Capital. veda.tech

• GTE, a decentralized exchange, raised $15m in Series A funding led by Paradigm. axios.link/3GcHzpX

🚑 SuperDial, an SF-based voice AI platform for health care, raised $12m in Series A equity funding, per Axios Pro. SignalFire led, joined by Slow Ventures, Box Group, and Scrub Capital. axios.link/44gc9Hc

⚡ Echandia, a Swedish marine battery maker, raised $11m in Series A extension funding from S2G Investments, per Axios Pro. axios.link/3T2WUfJ

• Quinn, an embedded financial planning platform for banks and fintechs, raised $11m in seed funding led by Viola Fintech, per Axios Pro. axios.link/3HWTgla

• Qualytics, an Atlanta-based enterprise platform for augmented data quality, raised $10m in Series A funding. BMW i Ventures led, joined by Conductive Ventures, Firebrand Ventures, and insiders Tech Square Ventures, Knoll Ventures, Inner Loop Capital, SaaS Venture Capital, and Rich Family Ventures. axios.link/4ntKKum

• Blueprint Finance, a multi-chain DeFi infrastructure startup, raised $9.5m. Polychain Capital led, joined by Yzi Labs (fka Binance Labs). axios.link/4kWfP8n

🚑 Voicecare AI, an SF-based agentic AI startup for health care admins, raised $4.5m in seed funding. Caduceus Capital Partners led, joined by Bread and Butter Ventures and Mayo Clinic. voicecare.ai

• YieldClub, a non‑custodial crypto savings app, raised $2.5m in pre-seed funding from Pharsalus, Flex Capital, The House Fund, and Superlayer. axios.link/44sHlnU

• Mahalo, a purchase experience platform, raised $2.6m in pre-seed funding. Motivate Venture Capital led, joined by Diagram and Bridge Venture Fund. getmahalo.com

🚑 OutSee, a U.K. predictive genomics startup, raised £1.8m in seed funding led by Ahren Innovation Capital. axios.link/3HVDGGz

🚑 Knowtion Health, an Arsenal Capital Partners portfolio company, acquired Switch RCM, a Madison, Wis.-based health-care revenue cycle company. axios.link/45Gia2t

🚑 Harvest Partners invested in Med-Metrix, a provider of revenue cycle management solutions whose backers include A&M Capital. med-metrix.com

🚑 Latticework invested in First Medical Associates, a primary care provider with 11 clinics in Maryland. drsfirst.com

🚑 PharmaLogic, a Florida-based portfolio company of Webster Equity Partners, acquired a majority stake in Norwegian CDMO Agilera Pharma from the Institute for Energy Technology. axios.link/45VyJHR

• Platinum Equity agreed to acquire Solo Group, a French provider of B2B personalizable products, from the company's founder and management. sologroup-paris.com

• Shrieve Chemical, a Gemspring Capital portfolio company, acquired Carbon Chemicals, an Irish distributor of specialty chemicals, food ingredients, pharma raw materials, and agriculture products. shrieve.com

🚑 Vision Innovation Partners, a Gryphon Investors portfolio company, acquired Eye Care of Delaware. visioninnovation-partners.com

• WestView Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in EyeQ Monitoring, an Atlanta-based provider of remote video monitoring security.

• Navan (fka TripActions), a Palo Alto-based corporate travel agent, filed confidentially for an IPO, per Reuters. It's raised over $2b from VCs like a16z, Addition, Coatue, 01 Advisors, and Lightspeed. axios.link/4kWgois

• Wealthfront, a Palo Alto-based robo-adviser, said it's filed confidentially for an IPO. It's raised around $300m from firms like Index Ventures, Spark Capital, and Tiger Global. Three years ago it terminated an agreement to be acquired for $1.4b by UBS. axios.link/407SXKL

• EQT sold Recover, a Scandinavian property remediation firm, to Pangea AS. axios.link/3HS5yv1

🚑 Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN) acquired proteomics business SomaLogic for up to $425m in cash ($370m upfront) from Standard BioTools (NYSE: LAB). axios.link/4llnvAJ

🚑 Jadwa Investment is seeking to sell its 51% stake in Saudi drugmaker EFG Holdings, with hopes of a $267m enterprise value, per Bloomberg. axios.link/4lovjSd

• Warburg Pincus is in talks to sell a 10% stake in Indian insurer SBI General Insurance to Premji Invest and State Bank of India at a $4.5b valuation, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3HV1bzq

• C&S Wholesale Grocers agreed to buy Michigan-based food distributor SpartanNash (Nasdaq: SPTN) for $1.77b. axios.link/4k6ynkS

• Claire's Stores, the Illinois-based retail jeweler, hired Houlihan Lokey to explore a full or partial sale, per Bloomberg. Backers include Elliott Management and Monarch Alternative Capital. axios.link/3Ggkanv

• Omnicom Group (NYSE: OMC) and Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG) will receive FTC approval for their $13.3b merger, so long as they abstain from media platform boycotts tied to politics. BFD flashback.

• Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) said it plans to remain independent, despite a takeover approach from Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK). BFD flashback.

• Snyk, a Boston-based developer security company valued by VCs at $7.4b, acquired Invariant Labs, an AI security research firm. snyk.io

• Volvo agreed to sell its 70% stake in Chinese construction equipment manufacturer Shandong Lingong Construction Machinery to Lingong Group for $833m. axios.link/3G1qM9n

• Marlin Equity Partners raised €1b for its third Europe fund. marlinequity.com

• Project A, a European VC firm, raised €325m for its fifth fund. axios.link/4lek4wd

• Sentinel Global, a new VC firm led by Jeremy Kranz (ex-GIC), raised $213.5m for its debut fund. sentinelglobal.xyz

• Samuel Francis and Reed Schuster joined law firm Vinson & Elkins as private investment funds partners. They previously were with Kirkland & Ellis. velaw.com

• Andre Lennon-Smith joined Vista Equity Partners as head of international wealth. He previously was with KKR. axios.link/44hYQGh

• Joe McGeehin is joining FS Investments as CFO, succeeding the retiring Phil Browne (who remains a vice chair). He previously was deputy CFO and head of strategy at Bridgewater Associates. fsinvestments.com