Cleaning out the notebook before a long weekend...

☀️ Making the cut: Tech and media moguls soon will head to Sun Valley for Allen & Co's annual confab, and I've got a copy of the closely guarded guest list (minus spouses/partners).

• 359 names, headlined by five Mag 7 CEOs. No Jensen Huang or Elon Musk — nor anyone from Nvidia, Tesla, or SpaceX.
• OpenAI has two guests to Anthropic's one, although OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar — a past attendee — isn't going. Also fun to see that Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are listed next to each other alphabetically (no word on whether meal seating will follow suit).
• Unicorn CEOs on the list are from Anduril, Canva, Hadrian, Harvey, Notion, Oura, Plaid, PhysicsX, Ramp, Stripe, Substrate, Unconventional AI, Varda, and Zipline.
• One big change from prior years is the absence of politicians. No senators, members of Congress, or Cabinet secretaries. The closest would be Jared Kushner or former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.
• Lots of VCs, institutional investors, and sports league owners and commissioners. Plus a small handful of reporters, but my invite must have gotten lost in the mail.

🛴 Lime shares rose 4% in their first day of trading, after the micromobility company raised $167 million in its IPO.

I asked CEO Wayne Ting if there was an unexpected question he was asked repeatedly during the roadshow. His reply:

• "The one question that I felt was maybe a little bit lazy was: 'Bird was such an unsuccessful publicly traded company. Why should I believe in this story?'"
• "The answer was just to look at the S-1. We are bigger. We are growing faster. We are profitable. We are free cashflow positive. All of these things were not true with Bird. And this is a winner-take-most market and Lime is the winner. Scale begets scale. We're the only vertically integrated operator across hardware and software operations. ... Lime really is an n-of-1 company in this industry."

🏠 Housing hiccup: President Trump still hasn't said if he'll sign or veto the bipartisan housing bill, which includes restrictions on PE ownership of single-family homes.

• He had supported the legislation until deciding at the last minute to use it as leverage to get a voting bill passed (which remains unlikely to happen).
• If Trump simply sits on his hands, the bill would automatically become law a week from tomorrow.

⚠️ Slowdown signs: PitchBook is out with its first look at Q2 private equity data, and is waving a yellow flag.

• Entry: "The megadeal frenzy that marked the previous few quarters has slowed to a crawl."
• Exit: "YTD exits are pacing in line with the 2025 rate, dimming the industry's expectation for a stronger exit market in 2026."

🏀 Billy ball: Some readers last night asked for my reaction to the PE-backed Boston Celtics trading away Jaylen Brown for a bag of balls. I sat down to write an analytical essay, which I now share in full:

• 🤮🤮🤮

🚧 Clarification: On Tuesday we reported that Nippon Steel has spent or approved to spend about $3.2 billion on U.S. Steel projects. The total announced thus far is more than $5 billion, including projects that U.S. Steel has committed to publicly but which are pending various approvals.

Microsoft this morning said it will invest $2.5 billion into Microsoft Frontier Co., a new operating business that is designed to embed 6,000 "AI and engineering experts" inside of customer organizations.

Why it's the BFD: Forward-deployed engineering teams are having a moment.

• Amazon announced a $1 billion investment just two days ago, before which both Anthropic and OpenAI set up FDE affiliates backed by billions in private equity funding.
• Overall, such efforts have secured at least $8.5 billion in investment commitments.

The bottom line: Microsoft's announcement emphasizes that it is model-agnostic, and that an enterprise customer's private data won't be used to train models. It's a bit of indirect shade at the frontier labs, without an explicit accusation.

• Switch, a Las Vegas data center operator majority-owned by SoftBank's DigitalBridge, is in talks to raise around $2b at a $50b valuation (including debt), per Bloomberg. Investors would include a16z. axios.link/4wH05vt

• Quantum Systems, a German drone maker, raised $1.2b in Series D funding at an $8b valuation led by Blackstone, Noteus, Airbus, and Advent International. Other backers include Bond, Fidelity, and Elephant Lake Ventures. axios.link/3Td3S4U

🚑 Celea Therapeutics, a Boston-based biotech focused on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, raised $180m from firms like RA Capital Management, Leaps by Bayer, and founding investor PureTech Health. axios.link/4aydU6N

• Shortical, a scripted micro-series platform, raised $100m in user acquisition financing from PvX Partners. axios.link/3SWdOQ9

• Venice AI, a privacy-focused AI platform, raised $65m in Series A funding at a $1b valuation. Dragonfly led, joined by Coinbase Ventures and North Island Ventures. axios.link/4vKh5Rk

• CarbonSix, an SF-based developer of manufacturing robotics hardware and software, raised $40m in Series A funding. DSC Investment and LB Investment led, joined by IMM Investment, Korea Development Bank, SV Investment, Cortentia, ASQ, Foothill Ventures, Storm Ventures, Zeitgeist Capital, Xquared, and CarbonBlack Fund. axios.link/3QX9eAu

• LinqAlpha, an AI research startup, raised $22m in Series A funding from Atinum Investment, AVP, and GFT Ventures, per Bloomberg. axios.link/4vKnxaZ

• StirlingX, a U.K. drone and infrastructure inspection startup, raised $20m in Series A funding from Ventura Capital and Rokos Capital Management. axios.link/4v6sBFm

• Alva Industries, a Norwegian maker of ultra-compact electric motors, raised €16m from Nysnø Climate Investments, Sandwater and Emerald Technology Ventures, Statkraft Ventures, and EnvisionTech. axios.link/4eWLbKa

• Wultra, a Czech provider of digital identity software for banks and fintechs, raised €6.8m in Series A funding. Seventure Partners led, joined by J&T Ventures and Elevator Ventures. axios.link/448vSsL

🚑 Materna Medical, a Mountain View, Calif.-based maker of medical devices for women, raised $5m from InnovaHealth Partners, Wavemaker360 Health, and Band of Angels. axios.link/4wgqCiM

• Amplix, a Gemspring Capital portfolio company, acquired Core Communications, a Suffield, Conn.-based tech advisory and expense management firm. axios.link/4eGbCoz

• Automotive Color & Supply, a WILsquare Capital portfolio company, acquired Ohio Paint Supply, a Greenfield, Ohio-based automotive and industrial paint provider. axios.link/4oZnrth

• Bain Capital and SoftBank affiliate LY Corp. again sweetened their joint takeover bid for Japanese price comparison and job search site Kakatu (Tokyo: 2371), this time to around $4.1b. EQT remains a rival bidder. axios.link/4gSOh4h

🚑 Experity, a GTCR portfolio company, acquired Exdion Healthcare, a Plano, Texas-based revenue cycle management company. axios.link/4oW3hR0

• Harvest Partners acquired Integra, a Mentor, Ohio-based provider of commercial HVAC testing, adjusting and balancing services, from Keystone Capital. axios.link/4p10vdd

• Monomoy Capital Partners completed its $1.3b acquisition of auto services chain Jiffy Lube from Shell (LSE: SHEL). axios.link/4b9pqWZ

🚑 Parthenon Capital invested in Momentum Life Sciences, an Indianapolis-based commercialization platform for specialty therapies. axios.link/4vGx7vk

🚑 Peak Rock Capital acquired Asembia, a Florham Park, N.J.-based provider of commercialization solutions for specialty pharma. axios.link/3TeUOMQ

• Platinum Equity agreed to invest in Grand Appliance, a Midwest retailer and distributor of appliances and consumer electronics. axios.link/4oWUFd3

• Solina, an Astorg portfolio company, acquired Epicurean Butter, a Denver-based maker of flavored compound butters, from HC Private Investments. axios.link/4aw1Y5q

• Sunrise Produce, an Investcorp portfolio company, acquired Anaheim, Calif.-based Family Tree Produce. axios.link/3QQa8io

• Truelink Capital acquired Horwitz, a Minneapolis-based provider of MEP services for commercial and industrial facilities. axios.link/4yeK7dw

• Vendavo, a portfolio company of Francisco Partners and Accel-KKR, agreed to acquire the non-life sciences business of Model N, owned by Vista Equity Partners. axios.link/4gOJDEq

🐶 Verlinvest and Five Seasons Ventures invested in Years, a British dog food brand. axios.link/4f0g7JD

• Volpi Capital acquired a majority stake in KGS Software, a German provider of archiving software. axios.link/4gKWZ4E

Q2 closeout: 48 companies raised a combined $104.8b via U.S. IPOs in the second quarter, led by SpaceX, per Renaissance Capital.

⚡ Genneia, an Argentine renewable energy producer, filed for an IPO and plans dual listings on the NYSE and the BYMA. Backers include Argentum. axios.link/4fgothi

• Meridian3 Industrials Acquisition, an industrial tech SPAC, raised $175m in its IPO. axios.link/4fZCmkK

• Three Lions Acquisition, a SPAC formed by Three Lions Capital Management, filed for a $100m IPO. axios.link/442t9Bf

• Viking Acquisition II, a SPAC led by KingsRock execs, raised $200m in its IPO. axios.link/49XyeOy

🚑 Ipsen (Paris: IPN) agreed to buy Memo Therapeutics, a Swiss biotech focused on BK polyomavirus, for €200m upfront and up to €500m in earnouts. Memo had raised over $90m from firms like Pureos Bioventures, Fresenius Medical Care Ventures, GF Group Holding, Redalpine, Ysios Capital, Kurma Partners, Vesalius Biocapital Partners, Verve Ventures, Swisscanto Holding, Schroders Capital, Kinled Holding and Adjuvant Capital. axios.link/4vGpGUT

• KKR sold Ocean Yield, a global ship lessor, to A.P. Møller. axios.link/4eFpaR8

• Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM) acquired SAM Seamless Network, an Israeli connected devices cybersecurity company that had raised $37m from Blumberg Capital, NightDragon, Ericsson, Telefónica, Intel Capital, Kickstart Ventures, Blackberry, Verizon Ventures, ADY, Mindset Ventures, and SparksLab Group. axios.link/4vcuHDQ

• Zoom (Nasdaq: ZM) agreed to acquire Common Room, a Seattle-based GTM intelligence platform that had raised $55m from firms like Next Play Ventures, 01 Advisors, Index Ventures, Operator Collective, Blank Ventures, and Madrona Venture Group. axios.link/447sq1C

⚡ Genel Energy (LSE: GENL) agreed to acquire Capricorn Energy (LSE: CNE) for $360m in cash. axios.link/3SHQs0D

• Nexar, an NYC-based physical AI intelligence company, is merging with Nauto, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based vehicle safety software company. Nexar raised nearly $150m from LionTree, Alibaba Capital Partners, Google Accelerator, and Valor Equity Partners. Nauto raised around $211m from AC Ventures, Stellantis Ventures SoftBank, Greylock, BMW i Ventures, Toyota Ventures, and GM Ventures. axios.link/4y0dAHO

• William Blair acquired Inner Circle Sports, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based boutique investment bank focused on the sports, media, and entertainment markets. axios.link/3R9ovyp

• Magnify Ventures, an early-stage VC firm focused on the "care economy," raised $46.6m for its second fund. axios.link/4fbP0MK

🌍 Mekong Capital of Vietnam is raising up to $200m for a climate-focused PE fund, including a $50m anchor commitment from Green Climate Fund. axios.link/4eSTlDn

• Memento Growth Partners, led by Kareem El Sawy (ex-Arrowroot), is raising its debut fund, per an SEC filing.

• David Brisske joined Axar Capital as co-managing partner. He previously was a managing director at SKYY Partners. axios.link/4avsdsL

• Venessa Generelli joined Blue Wolf Capital as CFO. She previously worked at a family office. axios.link/4vbXXKF

• Prudence, a NYC-based venture firm, promoted Tony Rosenberg to vice president. axios.link/4vFzz5c

The U.S. economy added 57,000 jobs in June, much lower than expectations, while revisions removed a total of 74,000 jobs from April and May reports.

• The unemployment rate fell a tick to 4.2%, the lowest mark since last July, while the labor participation rate was 61.5%.

Markets thus far are responding favorably, likely because a cooler jobs market would remove some pressure on the Fed to raise rates.