Emptying out the notebook after a long weekend...

🥊 Vivek Ramaswamy, the former GOP presidential candidate and entrepreneur, has increased his stake in BuzzFeed to 8.37% and plans to keep buying.

• That's according to a letter Ramaswamy recently sent the BuzzFeed board, in which he excoriates the company for ... well, just about everything. Content, strategy, workforce size, etc.
• Ramaswamy also asks the board to add three "high-profile" directors that Ramaswamy has identified, although he oddly didn't name them. All we know so far, per a source, is that Ramaswamy isn't suggesting himself for the board, and that their should be made public shortly.
• BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti responded via a "skeptical" email and requested a meeting, telling Ramaswamy that he has "some fundamental misunderstandings about the drivers of our business, the values of our audience, and the mission of the company."
• It remains unclear why Ramaswamy has interest in remaking a brand that he believes is so tarnished, rather than investing his money in a new endeavor. Save for getting to stick a finger in the establishment media's eye.

🆕 New firm alert: Three former partners of fund placement agency Eaton Partners (owned by Stifel) — Justin Icardo, Andrew Lobas, and Peter Martenson — have quietly left to launch Aviara Partners, a firm focused on capital raises for independent sponsors.

• It also will make direct equity investments in such deals.

🆕 New firm alert II: Megan Maloney, a former principal with General Catalyst, has launched a seed-stage firm focused on the "high costs in health and productivity."

• It's called Dria Ventures, and is raising up to $20 million for its debut fund (per an SEC filing).

📞 By the numbers: LSEG last week reported that telecom M&A had topped $41 billion, or more than double the year-to-date level in 2023.

• And that was before today's news that T-Mobile has agreed to buy most of U.S. Cellular's wireless assets for around $4 billion (including $2 billion of assumed debt).
• U.S. Cellular will retain its mobile tower portfolio, most of its wireless spectrum licenses and JVs with Verizon.

🎞️ Fact or fiction: Waystar, a Lehi, Utah-based health care revenue management software firm owned by EQT, today set IPO terms to 45m shares at $20-$23. It would have a $3.7b fully diluted market value, were it to price in the middle.

• So which came first: This Waystar or the one featured in the TV show Succession?
• The answer appears to be the fictional one, given that its pilot episode was filmed in late 2016.
• The real company now known as Waystar was formed by Bain Capital via a merger of two companies in late 2017, with the corporate name not announced until early 2018 (the first episode of Succession aired two months later).

💰 Coming attractions: Deel, the payroll and HR platform valued by VCs at over $12 billion, today will announce an investment in embedded finance startup Alviere and the addition of former Illumina CEO and current Walt Disney Co. director Francis deSouza to its board of directors.

• Deel's investment in Alviere investment, which is aimed at shortening its wait for state money transfer licenses, is the company's first corporate VC investment, but CEO Alex Bouaziz tells me that he is "going to most likely do a bunch more of those."
• The addition of deSouza, who left Illumina after the Grail acquisition debacle, came via a board search aided by Deel investor Andreessen Horowitz. Bouaziz says that the pair "just clicked," and that he hopes deSouza can be particularly helpful on go-to-market strategies. Particularly as the company gears up for what's likely to be a 2026 IPO.
• What Bouaziz wouldn't say is who deSouza is replacing on the current Deel board, but don't be surprised if it's Ali Rowghani, who originally joined via his now-former role at YC Continuity Fund.

xAI, the generative AI startup led by Elon Musk, announced that it raised $6 billion at a $24 billion valuation.

Why it's the BFD: Musk now has a war chest to begin challenging his former colleagues at OpenAI, beyond just in the courtroom.

Investors in the Series B round include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Fidelity, Craft Ventures, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and Kingdom Holding.

• Most of those backers also helped Musk finance his buyout of Twitter/X.

What we know: Musk tells Axios that all $6 billion is new capital, not some sort of rollover equity tied to Twitter/X.

What we don't know: If those Twitter/X investors were granted additional stakes in xAI.

The bottom line: "Musk has always overpromised, and recently he has underdelivered enough to raise big questions about xAI — but big money is still lining up for him." — Scott Rosenberg, Axios

• Infra.market, an Indian construction materials procurement platform, raised $50m from MARS Unicorn Fund. axios.link/4ayLAy1

• Supervizor, a QA platform for finance teams, raised $22m. Orange Ventures led, and was joined by Wille Finance, La Maison Partners, New Alpha Asset Management, Adelie Capital, and ISAI. supervizor.com

🚑 Spectrum.Life, an Irish telehealth startup, raised €17m led by Act Venture Capital. axios.link/3QWSDJR

• Averlon, a Redmond, Wash., cloud security startup, raised $8m in seed funding. Voyager Capital led, and was joined by Salesforce Ventures and Outpost Ventures. axios.link/452CbxS

• Rows, a German spreadsheet app, raised €8m. Indico Capital Partners led, and was joined by insiders Cherry Ventures, Accel, Lakestar, and Armilar Venture Partners. axios.link/3yxI9dL

• Oscar, a Portuguese home services app, raised over €6m. Lince Capital and Indico Capital Partners co-led, and were joined by Failup Ventures, Olisipo Way, Boost Capital Partners, and Quiet Capital. axios.link/4aIuxK2

• Q*Bird, a Dutch communications security startup, raised €2.5m. QDNL Participations and Cottonwood Technology Fund co-led, and were joined by InnovationQuarter. axios.link/4bVtDuy

• Coinflow, an instant settlement payment provider, raised $2.3m in seed funding. CMT Digital led, and was joined by DCG, Reciprocal Ventures, Jump Crypto, and Draper Dragon. coinflow.cash

⚡ Delta Green, a Czech renewable electricity supply platform, raised €2.2m. Tilia Impact Ventures led, and was joined by Credo Ventures and Purple Ventures. axios.link/4bVbOfq

• Eficode, a Finnish dev-ops company owned by Investcorp, acquired Jodocus, an Atlassian Platinum partner in Germany. eficode.com

⚡ Energy Capital Partners agreed to buy British sustainable infrastructure firm Atlantica Sustainable Infrastructure (Nasdaq: AY) for $2.56b, or $22 per share. axios.link/3wVWbW7

• Intermediate Capital Group agreed to buy a stake in Law Business Research, a London legal content provider, from LLCP. axios.link/3yuqfbK

🚑 Oakley Capital invested in ProductLife Group, a French provider of outsourced life sciences development, regulatory and compliance services. productlifegroup.com

• PrecisionX, a Waterbury, Conn., portfolio company of Core Industrial Partners acquired National Manufacturing Co., a Piscataway, N.J., provider of deep and shallow drawn stamping. precisionxmfg.com

• Pro-Vac, a Puyallup, Wash., portfolio company of Gallant Capital Partners, acquired Kinetic, a Milliken, Colo., provider of hydro excavation services. pro-vac.com

• Rental Equipment Investment Corp., a Miami-based portfolio company of Kinderhook Industries, acquired Tabernash, Colo.-based Indian Peaks Rental. reicorporation.com

⚡ Tinicum acquired KGM, a Tulsa distributor of natural gas products, from Compass Group. kgmgas.com

🚑 Actuate Therapeutics, a Fort Worth, Texas-based cancer biotech, filed for a $50m IPO. The Phase 2 company plans to list on the Nasdaq (ACTU) and raised over $60m from firms like Bios Equity and Kairos Ventures. axios.link/3yyQ2jh

• Apis Partners agreed to sell a control stake in GHL, a Southeast Asian payments provider, to NTT Data Japan. ghl.com

⚡ Energy Transfer (NYSE: ET) agreed to buy WTG Midstream Holdings for around $3.25b from Stonepeak, Diamondback Energy (Nasdaq: FANG) and the Davis Estate. axios.link/3KgNMj4

• ABN AMRO (AMS: ABN) agreed to buy German private bank HAL from China's Fosun International for €672m. axios.link/3x2Juc1

• Adam Neumann has ended his efforts to re-acquire WeWork via his new real estate startup, Flow, per the NY Times.

🚑 Asahi Kasei (Tokyo: 3407) offered to buy Calliditas Therapeutics (STO: CALTX), a Swedish drugmaker whose lead candidate treats a rare kidney disease, for $1.1b. axios.link/4bLMg4i

• BBVA (Madrid: BBVA) asked Spanish securities regulators for approval to launch a $13.3b hostile takeover offer for smaller lender Sabadell (Milan: SABE). axios.link/3KiAqTC

🚑 Bicycle Therapeutics (Nasdaq: BCYC), a British developer of cancer therapeutics based on bicyclic peptides, raised $555m via a private placement from firms like Deep Track Capital, EcoR1 Capital, Fairmount, Forbion, Perceptive Advisors, and RA Capital Management. axios.link/4eaC3k3

• Elliott Investment Management has amassed a $2.5b stake in Texas Instruments (Nasdaq: TXN), per CNBC. axios.link/3yACZ0x

• Persimmon (LSE: PSN), a British homebuilder, is weighing a £1b takeover offer for rival Cala Group from Legal & General (LSE: LGEN), per Sky News. axios.link/3KgsAKb

• Wiit (Milan: WIIT) is in talks to buy British IT services group Redcentric (LSE: RCN), per Reuters. axios.link/3X00nio

• Identity.vc of Germany raised €50m for early-stage startups with LGBTQ+ members of the C-suite. axios.link/3wJAGb8

• Rialto Ventures, a European hard tech VC firm co-founded by Simone Brunozzi and Stefano Quintarelli, has closed on more than €55m for its debut fund, which is expected to hold a final close next year. axios.link/3wVKDCj

🚑 TVM Capital Healthcare raised around $250m for a Saudi-focused PE fund. tvmcapitalhealthcare.com

• Toby Knapp joined law firm Baker McKenzie as an M&A and private equity partner. He previously was with O'Melveny & Myers. axios.link/4bv6LCu

Vista Outdoor (NYSE: VSTO) this morning said that its entered into an amended agreement to sell its firearms and ammo division to Prague-based Czechoslovak Group, as it seeks to hold off a rival offer for the entire company by Dallas-based family office MNC Capital.

• The new deal is valued at $1.96 billion, up from $1.91 billion, and increases the cash payment to Vista shareholders to $16 from $12.90.
• MNC's most recent takeover offer is $3 billion, or $37.50 per share.

The bottom line: The announcement coincides with the original extended deadline for Vista to receive U.S. national security clearance for a sale to Czechoslovak Group, although it later refiled to get even more time.