I'm pleased to announce that our next Axios BFD event will be in San Francisco on May 14.

• Request your invite.

Our lineup (so far), includes:

• Dr. Karen DeSalvo, chief health officer at Google
• Katie Haun, founder and CEO of Haun Ventures
• Jim Lanzone, CEO of Yahoo
• David Sacks, co-founder and partner of Craft Ventures
• Steve Young, co-founder of HGGC and former NFL quarterback

This is our fifth BFD, and second time in San Francisco.

• Really looking forward to our on-stage conversations at Terra Gallery with some of the Bay Area's top dealmakers and execs, plus all the audience networking and post-event cocktails.
• Highlights from last year's San Francisco event are here.

To join us, please request an invite.

A few new funds you might not have heard about:

• Floating Point, an early-stage VC firm focused on startups in complex sectors, tells Axios that it's raised $70 million for its second fund.

• Floating Point's co-founders are Eddie Segel and John Loser, who first met as quant traders at Bridgewater Associates before both helping to launch health insurer Oscar.
• Its thesis is that there is still VC value to be found by supporting capital-intensive startups, but that the trouble came when venture firms began flooding money into startups that really were capital-light models.
• Portfolio companies include tech-enabled rollups in the car wash and orthopoedics practice spaces, plus a flood tracker for climate insurance and a timber supply chain management platform.

• Three top executives of Sun Capital Partners have left to form their own firm called Palm Peak Capital, which will focus on mid-market industrial manufacturing and business services companies in North America.

• In a statement, Sun said it fully supports the trio, Daniel Florian, Steven Liff, and Jeremy Stone.

• A new climate tech firm called Sunna Ventures has raised $40 million for its debut fund from. All of the capital comes from a single, unidentified family office.

• Sunna is led by Luis Daniel Arbulu, a Google and Samsung Next vet who most recently led Xertica Labs, a digital transformation consultancy for Latin American companies. He tells me the firm name comes from the personification of the sun in ancient Germanic mythology.

Macy's (NYSE: M) appears to have made nice with Arkhouse Management, the activist investment firm seeking to buy the iconic retailer for $6.6 billion.

Why it matters: This settles down what had become a very contentious proxy fight, including a lawsuit yesterday from an institutional shareholder that accused the Macy's board of having "weaponized" its debt agreements as part of its takeover defense.

Catch up quick: Arkhouse had nominated a slate of directors to the Macy's board, with shareholders scheduled to vote on May 17.

• Per this morning's announcement, Macy's will add two of the Arkhouse nominees to its board, while Arkhouse will withdraw the rest.
• Macy's also is immediately implementing several other board changes, which had been previously announced, and said it's continuing to engage with Arkhouse and partner Brigade Capital Management about the takeover offer.

The bottom line: A takeover still could happen, but bringing the activists inside the house makes it less likely.

🌎 HysetCo, a French renter of hydrogen-powered EVs to taxi drivers, raised €200m. Hy24 led, and was joined by Raise Impact and Eiffel Investment Group. axios.link/3UcaGOj

• Guesty, a New York-based provider of property management software for the short-term rental and hospitality markets, raised $130m in Series F funding. KKR led, and was joined by Inovia Capital and insiders Apax Partners, BDT & MSD Partners, and Sixth Street. axios.link/4cJiiz4

• Cobot, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of "practical collaborative robots," raised $100m in Series B funding. General Catalyst led, and was joined by Bison Ventures, Industry Ventures, Lux Capital and insiders Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Mayo Clinic, Neo, 1984 Ventures, MVP Ventures, and Calibrate Ventures. axios.link/3PWa78U

• Honey Insurance, an Australian home insurance startup, raised A$108m in Series A funding led by Gallatin Point Capital. axios.link/3vBHhUt

• Mezo, a Bitcoin scaling network, raised $21m. Pantera Capital led, and was joined by Multicoin Capital, Hack VC, ParaFi Capital, Nascent, Draper Associates, Primitive Ventures, and Asymmetric Ventures. axios.link/3TOZc1P

• Alethea, a disinformation detection and mitigation startup, raised $20m in Series B funding, as first reported by Axios. GV led, and was joined by Hakluyt Capital and insider Ballistic Ventures. axios.link/3TLPldc

⚡ Proxima Fusion, a German nuclear fusion startup, raised €20m in seed funding. Redalpine led, and was joined by Bayern Kapital, DeepTech & Climate Fonds, Max Planck Foundation, Plural, High-Tech Gründerfonds, Wilbe, UVC Partners, and Visionaries Club. axios.link/4cOn1zz

🚑 Reshape, a Copenhagen-based platform to automate microbiology research, raised $20m in Series A funding from Astanor Ventures, ACME, YC, R7, Nicholas Francis, and 21stBio. reshapebiotech.com

• Pactio, a London-based provider of private markets transaction software, raised $14m in Series A funding led by EQT Ventures. axios.link/3Uc0rJU

• Summer, a New York-based provider of student loan solutions for employers, raised $9m. Rebalance Capital and SemperVirens co-led, and were joined by General Catalyst, QED, Flourish Ventures, Partnership Fund for NYC, Fenway Summer, and Gaingels. axios.link/3U9FYFr

• Bambrew, an Indian sustainable packaging producer, raised $7.2m in Series A equity and debt funding led by Blume Ventures. axios.link/3TOJ8NM

• Smartpay, a Japanese digital embedded finance startup, raised $7m in a pre-Series A led by SMBCVC and Angel Bridge VC. axios.link/3TPDKKi

• Spines, a Boynton Beach, Fla.-based book publishing platform, raised $6.5m in seed funding. Aleph led, and was joined by M-Fund, Dan Senor, and LionTree. axios.link/3PWhqxb

• Summit, a Canadian commercial brokerage, raised C$3.5m. IA Capital Group led, and was joined by Harvest Venture Partners. summitcover.ca

🚑 Log My Care, a British home care startup, raised £3m from insider Mercia Ventures. axios.link/3vIItp4

🚑 Neurava, an Indianapolis-based maker of medical wearables, raised $2.3m in seed funding. Life Science Angels led, and was joined by UCB, Purdue Innovates, Elevate Ventures, Rivermount Ventures, and First Leaf Capital. axios.link/3U9hyvW

🌎 Völur, an Oslo-based provider of sustainability software to the meat industry, raised $2.8m co-led by Serra Ventures and York IE. axios.link/3U98kzN

🚑 Alcanza Clinical Research, an investigator site network backed by Martis Capital, acquired Palmetto Bay, Fla.-based clinical research site Innovation Medical Research Center. alcanzaclinical.com

🚑 Archimed acquired Cellese, an Irvine, Calif.-based skincare products maker. axios.link/3xxnp5p

• Behrman Capital acquired Vista Apex, a Racine, Wis.-based maker of consumable dental products. vistaapex.com

• Esprit (HK: 330), a fashion retailer, is in talks with an unnamed private equity firm about selling a control stake in its troubled European business, per the WSJ. axios.link/3PWo1ru

• Factor89 Group acquired Master Magnetics, a Castle Rock, Colo.-based magnet maker. magnetsource.com

• HarbourView Equity Partners invested in Mucho Mas Media, a content studio focused on the Latino audience. axios.link/3xuXuLL

• Madison Dearborn offered to buy Australian HR services firm APM (ASX: APM) for around A$1.3b, but APM's board found the bid to be "disappointing." axios.link/3Ubf0xb

• Osceola Capital acquired Trauma Services, a Mansfield, Mass.-based provider of full-service biohazard cleanup and remediation services. traumaservices.com

• Banca Progetto, an Italian lender owned by Oaktree Capital Management, stopped its Milan IPO process after receiving a takeover approach, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3VN93bd

⚡ Innovex, a Humble, Texas-based provider of oil well lifecycle services, withdrew IPO registration. This comes after the company, backed by Amberjack Capital Partners, agreed to merge with Dril-Quip (NYSE: DRQ). axios.link/3VOdvXa

• Linqto, a San Jose, Calif.-based investment platform for private companies, agreed to go public at an implied $700m valuation via Blockchain Coinvestors Acquisition (Nasdaq: BCSA), a SPAC that previously had agreed to buy asset digitization company Qenta. axios.link/3Ucpdte

• Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com and Tumblr, acquired messaging app Beeper, which had raised around $16m from backers like Garry Tan, Samsung NEXT Ventures, Liquid2Ventures, and SV Angel. Automattic backers include BlackRock, Wellington Management, and Iconiq. axios.link/3JdAtPX

• Five Arrows agreed to buy Rimes Technologies, a Boston-based data management firm, from EQT. axios.link/43TSBrr

• Wiz, a New York cloud security firm valued by VCs at $10.3b, confirmed reports that it will buy Gem Security, an Israeli cloud detection and response startup that raised $34m from GGV Capital, Team8, IBM Ventures and Silicon Valley CISO Investments.

• Blue Owl (NYSE: OWL) is buying Prima Capital Advisors, a commercial real estate investment firm, and hiring Jesse Hom (ex-GIC) to lead its new efforts in that market. axios.link/3PVw3Rw

• HSBC (LSE: HSBC) agreed to sell its Argentina business to Grupo Financiero Galicia for $550m.axios.link/3PUV3Za

⚡ Italgas (Milan: IG) made a €4-5b preliminary offer for rival Italian gas distributor 2i Rete Gas. axios.link/3xxj2aB

• One Hotels & Resorts acquired the 35% stake it didn't already hold in German budget hotel chain Motel One from Proprium Capital Partners at a €4.1b valuation. axios.link/4cSTxkg

• ProSiebenSat.1 Media (ETR: PSM) is weighing sales of both price-comparison site Verivox and online perfume retailer Flaconi, which could fetch a combined €800m, per Bloomberg. axios.link/3Umt47v

• Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures, a pan-African VC firm, raised $60m for its debut fund. axios.link/4as19Zg

• Y Combinator has raised $1.68b so far for a trio of new funds, per SEC filings.

• Farrukh Bezar joined Littlejohn & Co. as an operating adviser. He previously was SVP and chief strategy officer at CSX Corp. axios.link/3xzzXta

🚑 Frank Williams, co-founder and former CEO of Evolent Health, joined Define Ventures as a venture partner. definevc.com

• Michael Wilson joined Sheppard Mullin as a Chicago-based partner focused on private equity and venture capital. He previously was with Locke Lord. sheppardmullin.com

An increasingly vocal bloc of monetary hawks is expressing wariness of interest rates in the near term, threatening to end the Fed's era of uncommon unanimity, Axios' Neil Irwin writes.

• Fed governor Michelle Bowman last week raised the possibility of raising rates, given stubborn inflation, although neither Bowman nor any of her peers have explicitly stated they would dissent from rate cut plans.
• There has not been a policy dissent in the last 14 meetings, dating back to June 2022.

The bottom line: At their best, formal policy dissents can signal a vibrant debate and diverse perspectives. At their worst, they can undermine the effectiveness of the central bank's leadership.

• The eight dissents in 2008, all favoring tighter policy, were distinctly unhelpful when the global financial system was unraveling.