Together with

Good Morning,

CVS has a big opioid settlement in Florida, the EU is considering new Russian bank sanctions, Waymo is sending driverless cars through San Francisco, Apple and Meta got hacked, and Biden says we may have a vaccine shortage in the Fall.

ICYMI: Big Swinging Decks was back yesterday with everything you need to know about crypto, web3 and NFTs. Catch the latest episode of the BSD podcast, presented by CoinFLEX.US, on Spotify and Apple Music 🤝 

Lastly, we've got some BIG THINGS COMING on the private investment opportunity side of things. Pls fill this survey out if you'd like access to the info once available. Limited to accredited investors and qualified purchasers tho (thx, SEC). 

Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

If you want to learn more about crypto trading strategies and the world of DeFi, check out our Foot Guns newsletter.

Markets

• US stocks moved slightly lower yesterday with the major indexes closing in the red, as investors continued to monitor developments in Ukraine and the bond market

  • While Russia announced it would reduce its military presence in some parts of Ukraine, several countries, including the US, remain skeptical amid more attacks yesterday

• ADP private payroll data came in better-than-expected with 455K jobs added in March (vs. 450K expected)

Earnings

• BioNTech reported better-than-expected top- and bottom-line numbers and said it plans to both buyback up to $1.5B of stock and propose to pay a special dividend (BRRNS)

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• EU is considering new Russian bank sanctions, diplomats say (WSJ)

• Biden team weighs massive release of oil to combat inflation (BBG)

• World's top banks pumped $742B into fossil fuels in 2021 (RT)

• Profits at large global banks set to fall sharply due to M&A slowdown (RT)

• CVS to pay $484M to settle opioid case in Florida (WSJ)

• Intel CEO received nearly $180M in compensation in 2021 (WSJ)

• Waymo to send driverless cars through San Francisco (WSJ)

• Biden announces new funding to make homes more energy efficient (CNBC)

• Apple and Meta gave user data to hackers who used forged legal requests (BBG)

• Apple working to bring financial services in-house (BBG)

• Biden warns US won’t have enough Covid vaccine shots this fall if Congress fails to pass funding (CNBC)

• Republic, a fintech startup that operates multiple investment platforms, announced their entry into Asia with the launch of Republic Asia (PRN)

A Message From Masterworks

This App Slaps (There I Said It)

I don’t need to tell you what happened on Sunday. We’ve seen about 4,532,342 memes of the slap that shocked the world. 

And of course, some wise guy minted a new slap cryptocurrency, AKA Will Smith Inu. Can you guess what happened next? 

Spoiler alert: Will Smith Inu exploded by over 10,000% in a day. Talk about fresh. 

Sure, sometimes a little crazy is good - ask early ETH and BTC holders - a little crazy turned thousands into millions. 

Not everything has to be crazy, though. I balance some of the crazier parts of my portfolio with stable investments that have long track records of steady growth. I’m not talking about muni-bonds or stable coins. I’m talking about an asset class that’s set to grow by over $1 trillion by 2026. It’s a real asset where prices grew 14.1% per year from 1995-2021 - that’s nearly 2x better the S&P 500. 

And with a new investing app backed by some big names in the VC world, you can get access to it. They’ve made headlines around the world. Since 2017, they’ve got their investors a net annualized gain of over +30% on 3 separate occasions. This isn’t an indication of overall performance, but impressive if you ask me. 

If you want to ride with me, click my fresh Exec Sum link for early access to this app.

See important Reg A disclosures 

Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• PE firm Hg agreed to buy a $10B stake in cloud software providers IFS and WorkWave from EQT (BBG)

• NPD Group, a market-information provider owned by Hellman & Friedman, is in talks to acquire rival Information Resources in a potential $5B+ deal (BBG)

• Indian private lender Axis Bank agreed to buy Citigroup’s local consumer banking arm for $1.6B (RT)

• Buyout firm Jordan Co. is in advanced talks to buy a majority stake in Five Star Holding Corp, an integrated group of manufacturing companies, for ~$1.5B (BBG)

• RIV Capital agreed to buy pot dispensary Etain Health in a ~$250M acquisition, as it bets on NY becoming a top marijuana market in the world (RT)

• Offshore oil and gas driller Cnooc is considering a sale of its UK North Sea portfolio (BBG)

VC

• Cross River Bank, a fintech infrastructure provider, raised $620M in financing led by Eldridge and a16z (BW)

• Helium, the creator of a blockchain that powers a decentralized wireless network, raised $200M at a $1.2B valuation in a funding round led by Tiger Global and Andreessen Horowitz (BBG)

• LayerZero Labs, a startup building an omnichain protocol to enable cross-chain dApps, raised a $135M round at a $1B valuation led by Sequoia Capital, FTX Ventures, and a16z (BW)

• Next-gen molecular diagnostics company BillionToOne raised a $125M Series C led by Adams Street Partners and Hummingbird Ventures (PRN)

• Low-code/no-code app development platform Builder.ai raised a $100M Series C led by Insight Partners (TC)

• Collectors, a collectibles research and analysis platform, raised a $100M round at a $4.3B valuation led by Turner, D1 Capital, Cohen Private Ventures, and more (BW)

• Games24x7, an Indian startup which owns and operates mobile games, raised a $75M round at a $2.5B valuation led by Malabar Investment (TC)

• AR glasses maker Nreal raised a $60M Series C extension led by Alibaba (TC)

• Yami, a startup building an online marketplace for Asian products, raised a $50M Series B led by Altos Ventures and Balsam Bay Partners (TC)

• Modern Treasury, a payment operations platform, raised a $50M Series C extension at a $2B valuation from SVB Capital and Salesforce Ventures (BW)

• Cloud-based business entity management startup Athennian raised a $33M Series B led by Centana Growth Partners (PRN)

• Cyberpion, an external attack surface management platform, raised a $27M Series A led by U.S. Venture Partners (TC)

• Wing Security, an end-to-end SaaS security platform, raised $26M: a $20M Series A led by GGV Capital and a $6M seed round led by S-Capital, Harmony Partners, and the Silicon Valley CISO Investments Group (TC)

• Healthcare hiring platform Apploi raised a $25M Series B led by m]x[v Capital (TC)

• Strategic finance platform Mosaic raised a $25M Series B led by Founders Fund (TC)

• Dagger, a devops platform orchestrating the delivery of applications to the cloud, raised a $20M Series A led by Redpoint Ventures (PRN)

• E-outboard boat startup Flux Marine raised a $15.5M Series A led by Ocean Zero (TC)

• AI-powered building design platform BeamUP raised a $15M seed round led by StageOne Ventures and Ibex Investments (TC)

• Arena, a startup helping build ‘Discord like’ communities for businesses, raised a $14M Series A led by CRV (TC)

• Neurocognitive assessment platform Altoida raised a $14M Series A extension led by M Ventures and Whitecap Venture Partners (BW)

• January, a tech-enabled debt collector, raised a $10M round led by Brewer Lane Ventures (TC)

• Glean, a startup looking to give everyone in an organization access to data insights, raised a $7M seed round led by Matrix Partners’ Ilya Sukhar (TC)

• UK-based cashless payment solutions provider Dapio raised a $3.4M seed round led by Flutterwave and Techstars (TC)

• VYRILL, a startup developing ‘in-video’ search technology for video commerce, raised a $3M seed round led by Noemis Ventures and Lightship Capital (PRN)

• Token and equity management startup Sprout raised a $3M seed round led by Sequoia Capital India (TC)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• UBS said it will buy back up to $6B of stock over the next two years (BBG)

• Dubai Electricity & Water Authority almost tripled the size of its IPO up to $5.7B (BBG)

• GoTo Group, an Indonesian ride-hailing, e-commerce and fintech company, raised ~$1.1B in an IPO (BBG)

Debt

• Churchill Downs, the owner operator of the racetrack that hosts the annual Kentucky Derby, is raising $900M in the high-yield bond market to help finance its asset purchase of Hard Rock Sioux City-owner Peninsula Pacific Entertainment (BBG)

Fundraising

• Farmland LP, a fund manager focused on converting conventional farmland into organic, raised a $130M fund (PRN)

• Blockchain-focused VC firm gumi Cryptos Capital raised a $110M fund to invest in early stage blockchain startups (BW)

Crypto Corner

• Solana surges as NFT rises 80% following news that OpenSea is testing a Solana integration (DC)

• Samsung taps Nifty Gateway to create smart TV NFT platform (DC)

Exec's Picks

• Dune Analytics is a startup that went from nothing to a unicorn company with only 16 employees in just 3 years. This post from them gives an inside look at their fundraising process.

• CoinFLEX US, the exclusive sponsor of Big Swinging Decks, is launching in the US soon. Get on their waitlist ahead of launch and receive $50 in their flexUSD upon official launch here.

The Hiring Block

If you're looking to break into finance, lateral, or move out, check out our job board on Pallet, where we curate highly relevant roles for you. We've got 40+ jobs spanning IB, S&T, VC, tech, private equity, DeFi, crypto, CorpDev and more. We sift through all the noise on LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster, etc. so you don't have to.

Meme Cleanser

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Catch the latest episode of our Big Swinging Decks podcast, presented by CoinFLEX.US, on Spotify and Apple Music 🤝