A crypto VC raised $1 billion to fund AI agents. The bet is that finance, not models, is what they need.
A crypto VC raised $1 billion to fund AI agents. The bet is that finance, not models, is what they need.

  Katie Haun has raised $1 billion for two new venture funds at Haun Ventures, split evenly between early and later-stage vehicles to be deployed over the next two to three years. The capital will go into crypto and blockchain companies, which have bee…

SAP buys Prior Labs to anchor a European frontier AI lab around tabular foundation models
SAP buys Prior Labs to anchor a European frontier AI lab around tabular foundation models

Eighteen months after a €9m pre-seed, the Freiburg-based pioneer of TabPFN is being acquired by SAP and will receive more than €1bn over four years. The terms are not disclosed; the strategic intent is unmistakable. When Frank Hutter, Noah Hollmann, an…

Blackstone wants $1.75bn for the first AI-era data-centre REIT
Blackstone wants $1.75bn for the first AI-era data-centre REIT

Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust will list on the NYSE under BXDC, targeting newly built data centres leased to hyperscalers. It is the most direct way Wall Street has yet packaged the AI build-out for public investors. For most of the past 18 m…

UCB pays up to $2.2bn for Candid Therapeutics, doubling down on T-cell engagers in autoimmune disease
UCB pays up to $2.2bn for Candid Therapeutics, doubling down on T-cell engagers in autoimmune disease

The Belgian pharma is buying a two-year-old San Diego biotech for $2bn upfront, the second TCE bet it has placed in months. The thesis: B-cell killers built for cancer can rewire how autoimmune diseases are treated. Candid Therapeutics is two years old…

Skio never hired a sales team, never ran an ad, and just sold for $105 million cash to the company it was built to replace
Skio never hired a sales team, never ran an ad, and just sold for $105 million cash to the company it was built to replace

Kennan Frost dropped out of college, worked as an engineer at Pinterest, had a panic attack, quit, applied to Y Combinator in 2020, and by his own account failed his way through the programme until a pivot to subscription payments changed everything. F…

The venture fund that spent $4.6 billion in a year just raised $6 billion more
The venture fund that spent $4.6 billion in a year just raised $6 billion more

Founders Fund, the venture capital firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, closed a $6 billion growth fund on 1 May, its largest ever and its fourth dedicated late-stage vehicle. The majority of the capital, $4.5 billion, came from limited partners including s…

Blue Owl made 10x its money on SpaceX and has already sold half its position
Blue Owl made 10x its money on SpaceX and has already sold half its position

The alternative asset manager’s co-CEO disclosed the returns on a Q1 earnings call, framing the SpaceX gain as a hedge against potential software credit losses from AI disruption, a revealing window into how private credit firms are navigating the AI e…

SPRIND opens applications for €125M competition to build Europe’s first frontier AI labs
SPRIND opens applications for €125M competition to build Europe’s first frontier AI labs

The Next Frontier AI Challenge, announced at EurIPS in December, explicitly tells applicants not to try to catch up with OpenAI, but to leapfrog to the next architectural S-curve, with up to €1 billion in follow-on funding dangled for the three winning…

More banks join SoftBank’s $40 billion OpenAI loan as syndication enters soft-launch phase
More banks join SoftBank’s $40 billion OpenAI loan as syndication enters soft-launch phase

HSBC, BNP Paribas, and Intesa Sanpaolo are among eight institutions that have submitted commitments as sub-underwriters, in one of the largest tests of creditor appetite for AI-linked debt. The $40 billion bridge loan SoftBank signed in March to fund i…

NVIDIA and Atlassian back Legora’s $600m Series D in a $50m extension that values the legal AI startup at $5.6 billion
NVIDIA and Atlassian back Legora’s $600m Series D in a $50m extension that values the legal AI startup at $5.6 billion

The Stockholm-founded company, which crossed $100m in ARR in 18 months, has now raised $866m in total, and Nvidia’s entry marks the chip giant’s first investment in legal tech. Legora has added $50 million to its Series D round, bringing the total to $…