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Good Morning,

Taylor Swift was named Time’s Person of the Year, traders are betting the ECB will cut rates to 2.5%, McKinsey shrank its new partner class by 35%, AMD debuted a new chip to compete with Nvidia, Google opened access to its Gemini AI model, and unicorn valuations are shrinking.

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Let’s dive in.

Before The Bell

Markets

• US stocks fell as investors digested fresh employment data

  • The Nasdaq led indices with a 0.58% decline

• Oil prices declined over 4% as WTI fell below $70/barrel on worries of weak demand

• Asian stocks rebounded, led by Japan’s Nikkei, following a broad selloff on Tuesday

Earnings

• What we're watching this week:  

  • Today: Broadcom, Lululemon, Dollar General, DocuSign

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• Taylor Swift was named Time’s person of the year (TIME)

• Traders eye ECB key rate at 2.5% as they ramp up bets on cuts (BBG)

• McKinsey shrinks new partner class by roughly 35% (WSJ)

• AMD CEO debuts Nvidia chip rival, gives eye-popping forecast (BBG)

• Meta and Microsoft say they will buy AMD’s new AI chip as an alternative to Nvidia’s (CNBC)

• EU races for deal on world’s first major AI rules (BBG)

• Fed’s repo backstop gets most use since 2020 (BBG)

• Roughly a third of unicorns see valuations shrink, limiting IPO prospects (BBG)

• China e-cigarette titan behind ‘Elf Bar’ floods the US with illegal vapes (CNBC)

• Google opens access to Gemini, racing to catch up to OpenAI (BBG)

• Disney+ adding Hulu integration as streaming bundles accelerate (CNBC)

• ‘El Loco’ won the Argentina election last month with outlandish ideas. Now he’s backpedaling (WSJ)

• Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications (RT)

• Walmart’s hiring and wage pressures have eased, CEO says (CNBC)

• Nuclear’s share of world power output at multi-decade low (RT)

• Verizon hires Peloton’s Berland as Chief Marketing Officer (BBG)

• Norway union joins Tesla blockade in support for Swedish workers (RT)

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Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• Danish food ingredients and enzymes makers Novozymes and Chr. Hansen are expected to gain EU antitrust approval for their $22B tie-up based on remedies offered to address competition concerns (RT) 

• AbbVie agreed to buy neurological disease drug developer Cerevel Therapeutics in a deal valued at $8.7B (BBG) 

•  Medical tools supplier Danaher completed its $5.7B acquisition of Abcam, overcoming the initial opposition from the founder of the protein consumables maker (RT) 

• ByteDance, parent of social video phenom TikTok, is offering to buy back up to $5B worth of shares from investors at a $268B valuation (BBG) 

• Bain Capital is the last remaining bidder for software company SoftwareOne Holding; Bain’s proposal valued SoftwareOne at up to $3.6B (RT)  

• Sportsology Capital Partners and Ares Management are in exclusive talks to acquire a 10% stake in Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers from Janice Simpson; the deal would value the baseball team at over $2B (BBG) 

• Australian fund manager Perpetual rejected a $2B takeover offer from diversified investor Washington H Soul Pattinson, its largest shareholder, due to undervaluation (RT)  

• Fosun International is exploring options including a minority stake sale in German automatic manufacturing solutions provider FFT Group, which could be valued at ~$1.6B (BBG) 

• India's TV18 Broadcast will merge with Network18 Media & Investments in a $1.2B deal to help the Reliance-owned companies expand and cut costs (RT) 

• US PE firm Trive Capital will acquire UK bowling venue operator Ten Entertainment in a $362M deal (RT) 

• Rakuten Group, which is struggling with heavy debt and losses, plans to sell ~15% of Rakuten Bank to overseas investors to raise as much as $433M (RT) 

• Warner Music-backed Influence Media Partners will acquire famed Latin singer Enrique Iglesias’ music catalog; the transaction is valued at nine figures (BBG)

VC

• X-energy, a developer of small modular nuclear reactors and fuel tech, raised a $235M Series C led by Ares Management and Kam Ghaffarian (FN)

• Pragmatic, a silicon-free chip producer, raised a $228.5M Series D led by Catalyst and UK Infrastructure Bank (EU)

• Vast Data, a scale-out, unstructured data storage solution, raised a $118M Series E at a $9.1B valuation led by Fidelity (TC)

• Data observability startup Bigeye raised $68.5M in funding from Alteryx (PRN)

• Maintenance and frontline work execution platform MaintainX raised a $50M Series C led by Bain Capital Ventures (BW)

• Replicate, a provider of a platform for open-source machine learning models, raised a $40M Series B led by a16z (FN)

• Enterprise-level AI startup AutogenAI raised a $39.5M Series B led by Salesforce Ventures and Spark Capital (FN)

• Liquid AI, an AI startup co-founded by robotics luminary Daniela Rus, raised a $37.5M seed round from OSS Capital, PagsGroup, Automattic, and more (TC)

• Generative AI art platform Leonardo.Ai raised a $31M round from Blackbird, Side Stage Ventures, and more (TC)

• AI chat platform ON raised $25M in financing led Equiam, B3 Capital, Commonwealth Financial Network, and Mirae Asset Venture Investing (VC)

• Cybersecurity software startup ProvenRun raised a $16.1M Series A led by Tikehau Capital (FN)

• Extropic, a physics-based computing startup, raised a $14.1M seed round led by Kindred Ventures (FN)

• Adcentrx Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on antibody-drug conjugates, raised a $13M Series C+ extension (bringing the round total to $38M) from Quan Capital and Partners Investment (PRN)

• Ability Biologics, a cell targeting company, raised a $12M round led by Amplitude Ventures (BW)

• Early risk assessment and digital reading startup Sharpen raised an $11M round led by Learn Capital (FN)

• Spade, a fraud detection startup for credit cards, raised a $10M Series A led by Flourish Ventures (TC)

• Virtual pizza restaurant chain Milano Vice raised a $9M Series A led by Coefficient Capital (FN)

• Machinery Partner, a B2B marketplace enabling manufacturers and dealers to sell online and deliver savings on the critical equipment builders need to complete jobs, raised an $8M Series A led by Armory Square Ventures (FN)

• Subscription solar startup Sunsave raised a $6.7M seed round led by Norrsken (TC)

• Wedding flowers startup Poppy raised a $6.5M Series A led by Michigan Capital Network (TC)

• BetterYou, an AI-based healthy habits companion startup, raised a $6M Series A led by Capital Midwest (VC)

• RxCell, a Singapore-based biotech company focused on cellular therapeutics for age-related diseases, raised a $4.6M seed round led by DMR Global Venture LLC and Regenosis (FN)

• NOLEJ, an AI-powered authoring tool for educators, raised a $3.3M round led by Educapital and Square Knowledge Ventures (PRN)

• Fantasy sports and betting media company FTN Network raised a $3M seed round led by Perry Gershon (FN)

• Renaissance, a platform for music superfans, raised $1M+ in funding from Blockchain Founders Fund and Panache Ventures (PRN)

IPO / Direct Listings / Issuances / Block Trades

• Data infrastructure company VAST Data is preparing for an IPO after raising $118M at a $9.1B valuation (RT) 

• Polish homebuilder Murapol raised $101M in its IPO thanks to Poland’s housing boom (BBG)

Debt

• UK insurance broker The Ardonagh Group is in talks with lenders to refinance its entire $3.9B debt stack to help finance more acquisitions (BBG) 

Fundraising

• Investment firm Avenir Growth Partners is seeking to raise $800M for its fifth fund (TC) 

• Fintech VC Canapi Ventures raised $750M for its second set of funds (AX) 

• Abu Dhabi-based Neovision Wealth Management set up a $250M fund to invest in the development of carbon credits in frontier markets (BBG)

Crypto Corner

• JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says he would shut down the crypto industry if he had US lawmaker power (BBG) 

• Bitcoin’s rally caused crypto short sellers to accumulate $6B in paper losses in 2023 (BBG)

Exec’s Picks

• A16z asked 40+ partners across their firm to preview one big idea that they believed would drive innovation in 2024, check out their list.

• VentureBeat covered Google’s release of its new AI model, Gemini.

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