A China divestment twofer today...

The House is gearing up to pass a package of bills with a TikTok provision tucked in: It would extend the deadline for Bytedance to either sell the social media app or face a U.S. ban, as my colleague Maria Curi reported yesterday.

Why it matters: It may be wishful thinking from Congress that with more time it will see a TikTok sale to U.S. owners — but there's no real sign from the Chinese tech giant that it wants to do that.

Catch up quick: The original House bill, introduced by Reps. Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi, gave ByteDance six months.

Yes, but: ByteDance has so far shown no desire to sell TikTok.

• Not to mention that TikTok is said to be bleeding money, making it a tall order to find willing buyers.

The intrigue: TikTok would face a ban if it doesn't sell to American owners — but members of Congress have also faced backlash from constituents who don't want to lose the app, both for entertainment and business reasons.

What we're watching: Whether the bill passes this weekend.

Bonus: The NY Times dug into court documents (accidentally made public) about ByteDance's origins.

Elsewhere in the House...

The House select committee on competition with China released a report yesterday, accusing Wall Street players like MSCI and BlackRock of funneling $6.5 billion into Chinese companies that advance China's military capabilities or support human rights abuses.

Why it matters: The bipartisan committee is soon losing its Republican leader, Rep. Mike Gallagher — but he's not going out with a whimper.

The other side: The companies say the report is misleading and inaccurate in how it describes their role, namely that indices do not recommend or make investments — they only track select companies' performance.

• "[The committee's] report includes misleading assertions about index funds, including that they are 'funneling billions of dollars' to these entities," a BlackRock spokesperson told Reuters.
• "If Congress or other government bodies expand restrictions on investment in China as recommended by the Committee, MSCI will assess applicable changes to our indexes in accordance with our methodologies," MSCI told Reuters in a statement.
• Oh, and the firm's actions aren't actually illegal.

What we're watching: The committee has no legislative power, so it's calling on others in Congress to take action.

Adam Neumann is prepared to beat by 10% any other buyout offer for WeWork, the co-working office company he co-founded that's currently in bankruptcy, his lawyer Alex Spiro told the Financial Times.

Why it's the BFD: A Neumann acquisition of the company would be a sharp turn of events given his ousting in 2019 after a failed attempt at going public.

Details: Neumann's Flow, his new real estate business, reportedly submitted a bid of more than $500 million for WeWork.

The bottom line: Neumann's time at the helm of the company was marked by lavish spending — an approach that's unlikely to be an effective way of running WeWork today, should he succeed at buying the company back.

• Magnus Metal, an Israeli meta alloy digital casting company, raised $74m in Series B funding led by Entrée Capital and Target Global, with Caterpillar Ventures, Tal Ventures, Deep Insight Ventures, Awz Ventures, Lumir Ventures, Discount Capital, Lip Ventures, Cresson Management, Next Gear Fund and Essentia Venture Capital also participating. magnusmetal.com

🚑 Avive Solutions, an S.F.-based remote cardiac arrest device maker, raised $56.5m in Series B funding led by Questa Capital, Laerdal Million Lives Fund and Catalyst Health Ventures, RC Capital and Eckuity Capital. axios.link/3Qab6CF

🌎 Swtch Energy, a Canadian residential electric vehicle charging company, raised $27.2m in Series B funding led by Blue Earth Capital, with Alantra, Active Impact Investments and Giga Investments also participating. axios.link/3JnYhk2

🌎 Halcyon, an S.F.-based maker of search tech for energy documents, raised $10.8m in seed funding led by Obvious Ventures and Congruent Ventures, with Overture Climate VC also participating. axios.link/445Nepg

• Dataplor, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based location data provider, raised $10.6m in Series A funding led by Spark Capital. axios.link/3U1Cy6F

• AIPERIA, a German food inventory management startup, raised $8m in Series A funding led by ETF Partners and LBBW VC, with EarlyBird Venture Capital also participating. axios.link/3vX3FaP

🌎 Momentick, an Israeli emissions detection service, raised $6.5m in seed funding led by Chartered Group Japan and Tau Ventures. axios.link/4aW6A2g

• Nebra, a N.Y.-based crypto research startup, raised $4.5m in seed funding led by Nascent Ventures and Bankless Ventures. axios.link/3VZ3OoL

• Langdock, a German enterprise large language model management startup, raised $3m in seed funding led by General Catalyst and La Famiglia, with Y Combinator, Rolf Schrömgens, Hanno Renner, Johannes Reck, Erik Muttersbach, and others also participating. langdock.com

• Apollo Global and Sony are considering a joint offer for Paramount Global, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3Q915Wm

• Ardian is close to a deal to acquire more than $1b of PE fund stakes from British Columbia Investment Management, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3W2jEir

• Stonepeak, acquired a Chicago-based three asset, 1.7 million square foot rail-served logistics portfolio, from CenterPoint Properties. stonepeak.com

• Triller is merging with Agba (Nasdaq: AGBA), a Hong Kong-based financial services company, at a combined enterprise value of $4b. Triller shareholders will own 80% of the new company, current Agba shareholders will own 20%. axios.link/3UqNL25

• Amplica Labs has acquired the tech assets of Speakeasy, a N.Y.-based online discussion service. axios.link/49KvxNa

• Getir, a Turkish delivery company, is weighing asset sales and potential exits from non-core markets, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3xMplqY

• Nordstrom's founding family is interested in taking the Seattle-based department store chain private. axios.link/4d4TH7X

⛽️ Schneider Electric (OTCMKTS: SBGSY) is in talks to acquire Bentley Systems (Nasdaq: BSY), an Exton, Pa.-based engineering software company currently with a market cap of $15.6b, per Bloomberg. axios.link/4aLjz7p

• Sundial Media Group agreed to buy Refinery29, a N.Y.-based women's lifestyle company, from Vice. axios.link/4aDOjHt

• Wiz is in talks to acquire Lacework, a Mountain View, Calif.-based security company, for $150m-$200m, much less than its recent $8.3b valuation and the $1.8b it has raised. axios.link/4aZDkYK

• 20VC, a U.K.-based venture firm led by podcaster Harry Stebbings, is seeking $400m for a flagship fund and an opportunities fund, per SEC filings. axios.link/3Q6DANi

• Andreessen Horowitz, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture firm, promoted Jennifer Li to general partner to help lead its new AI infrastructure fund. axios.link/3Up9do8

• Headline, an S.F.-based venture firm, promoted Taylor Brandt and Jacob Conger to principal. headline.com

• One Rock Capital Partners, a N.Y.-based private equity firm, hired Sudeep Shetty as an operating partner. onerock.com

• Permira, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based private equity firm, hired Steve Goldberg as its first executive-in-residence. He was previously chief revenue officer at Salesloft. permira.com

TSMC lowered its 2024 growth outlook for the overall chip market yesterday, sending its U.S. listed shares down nearly 5%, per my colleague Pete Gannon.

What's happening: The world's largest contract chip manufacturer said it expects the semiconductor market — excluding memory chips — to grow about 10% this year, versus the "more than 10%" it forecast three months ago.

Between the lines: Driving the lowered forecast was chip demand from the auto industry — which TSMC now sees as declining — and a muted bounceback from smartphones and personal computers, the company told analysts on a conference call today.

Yes, but: AI-related data center demand is "very, very strong," CEO C.C. Wei told analysts.

• The company continues to expect its overall revenue to grow by at least 20% this year.

Zoom out: Even with today's drop, TSMC's shares are up 30% this year and more than 50% over the past 12 months.