Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
Venture Capital
• Polymarket, a New York-based crypto prediction market, is in talks to raise $200m at a $1b valuation, per The Information. Go deeper
🚑 Ledgebrook, a Needham, Mass.-based insurtech focused on excess and surplus lines, raised $65m in Series C funding. The Stephens Group led, joined by Hummingbird Nomads and insiders Duquesne, Brand Foundry, Floating Point, and American Family Ventures. Go deeper
🚑 Arine, an SF-based medication adherence company, raised $30m in Series C funding led by Town Hall Ventures with participation from Kaiser Permanente Ventures. Go deeper
• Wispr Flow, maker of a dictation app, raised $30m in Series A funding. Menlo Ventures led, joined by NEA and 8VC. Go deeper
• Orus, a French digital insurer for SMBs, raised €25m in Series B funding. Singular led, joined by Notion Capital and Redstone. Go deeper
⚡ Aedifion, a German energy optimization startup, raised €17m in Series B funding. Eurazeo led, joined by Drees & Sommer, VC World Fund, BitStone Capital, Family Office Hopp, and Phoenix Contact Innovation Ventures. Go deeper
• GoKwik, an Indian customer engagement startup, raised $13m led by RTP Global, with participation from Z47, PeakXV Partners and Think Investments.
• Lyceum, a European cloud infrastructure startup, raised €10.3m in pre-seed funding led by Redalpine, with participation from 10x Founders. Go deeper
• Skyramp, an SF-based testing and debugging tool for engineering teams, raised $10m in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital. Go deeper
• Skarlett, a French financial marketplace for retirees, raised €8m in seed funding led by 115K, with participation from Raise Seed for Good and Alven. Go deeper
🚑 Empo Health, a San Bruno, Calif-based provider of monitoring tools for patients with diabetic foot ulcers, raised $7m. Story Ventures led, joined by VTC Ventures, Ulu Ventures, SeaX Ventures, Arben Ventures, and Gaingels. Go deeper
• Brij, a New York-based agentic AI marketing platform, raised $8m led by Bright Pixel Capital and CEAS Investments. Go deeper
• Ankor, a Swedish reconciliation fintech, raised $1.3m in pre-seed funding from Upfin, Bust, and Torq Partners. Go deeper
• ProfitSolv, a provider of practice management software for professional services firms, raised funding led by FTV Capital and Lightyear Capital. profitsolv.com
Private Equity
• Convertus Group acquired AIM Group of Cos., a Canadian company providing treatment and processing of discarded organic materials. aimgroup.ca
• Parthenon Capital acquired Aarete, a Chicago-based digital consultancy. aarete.com
• Serent Capital invested in PhotoDay, a Winter Park, Fla., provider of software for volume photographers. photoday.com
• Smart Care, a Chicago-based portfolio company of Wind Point Partners, acquired Mr. C Refrigeration, a cold storage and refrigeration installation and repair company. smartcaresolutions.com
Public Offerings
• Autodoc, a German online car parts retailer owned by Apollo, postponed its Frankfurt IPO without giving explanation. Go deeper
• Lime, a scooter network operator, has hired investment banks Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase for a planned IPO next year, per Reuters. Go deeper
Liquidity
• China Investment Corp. canceled a planned $1b secondary sale of U.S. private equity fund stakes, including those managed by KKR and TPG, per Bloomberg. Go deeper
• Nordic Semiconductor (Oslo: NOD) acquired Memfault, an SF-based cloud platform for connected product deployments, for $120m. It previously raised $35m from firms like Stripes, Interleave, Uncork Capital, Partech, Realm Capital Ventures, and 5G Open Innovation Lab. memfault.com
M&A
• Ambarella (Nasdaq: AMBA), a Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker, is weighing a sale, per Bloomberg. Go deeper
• Spins, a Chicago-based CPG analytics company, acquired Datasembly, a real-time pricing intelligence platform. Go deeper.
It's Personnel
• Ahsan Khan joined Piper Sandler as a managing director. He previously was with Asante Capital. Go deeper
• G.J. Hart joined Chicago restaurant VC firm Emerging as managing partner. He previously was president and CEO of Red Robin. Go deeper
• Sapphire Partners promoted Dan Clayton to principal and Andrew Vogeley, Adam Liu, Aditya Reddy, and Justin Liu to vice presidents. sapphireventures.com
• Unshackled Ventures promoted Alexis Maciel to principal. Go deeper
Debt
• Carmoola, a British car financing startup, secured a £300m asset-backed securities facility from NatWest and Chenavari Investment Managers. Go deeper
• Infinium, a Sacramento-based sustainable aviation fuel company, entered into a project-based credit arrangement with HSBC to finance its SAF plant near Pecos, Texas. Go deeper
Odds & Ends
💊 Otsuka Pharmaceutical of Japan will pay up to $623m to Harbour BioMed to develop autoimmune disease treatments. Go deeper
💊 Revolution Medicines, a Bay Area biotech, signed a "flexible funding agreement" worth up to $2b with New York-based Royalty Pharma, to develop cancer treatments. Go deeper
- Ryan Barwick, Natalie Breymeyer, Erin Brodwin, Colin Campbell, Katherine Davis, Katie Fehrenbacher, Ryan Lawler, Chris Metinko, Alan Neuhauser, and Dan Primack contributed to this report.
