News this week felt like a tale of concentration and caution. Lots of activity in and around the public markets (multiple files and relaunches). The S&P 500’s 10 largest have grown net income ~180% since 2019 vs. ~45% for the rest, underscoring how value is clustering around only a few winners in the public as well as private markets. Separately, Cloudflare became the first major provider to block AI crawlers by default, stoking the debate over the web’s “broken content economy” and I enjoyed reading The Economist’s piece on Palantir’s history – and the fact it could be a great short option…
IPOs / Public
Bullish (crypto exchange, parent of CoinDesk) upsized its IPO to $990M at a $4.8B valuation, ultimately raising $1.1B. Shares opened at $90 vs. $37 offer and closed up 143% – market cap >$10B. Appetite for profitable crypto infrastructure is back.
Heartflow (3D heart models from single scans) raised $316.7M in its Nasdaq debut at a $2.27B valuation, shares +47% on day one.
StubHub (ticket marketplace) revived September IPO plans. Q1 revenue $397.6M. Previously targeted $16.5B valuation.
Gemini (Winklevoss’ crypto exchange) planning IPO despite widening losses – $282.5M in H1 2025 vs. $158.5M in all 2024.
Fractal Analytics (analytics & AI) filed for a $560M IPO, backed by TPG and Apax Partners; potential valuation $3.5B+.
Via (on-demand transit) filed to go public – H1 2025 revenue $205.8M (+26% YoY), narrowing losses. Last private valuation $3.5B.
Lambda (GPU cloud) in talks to raise hundreds of millions at a $4–5B valuation ahead of an IPO as soon as year-end. Raised $480M Series D in February at $2.5B.
Bending Spoons (consumer apps holding) secured >€500M debt and is weighing an IPO to consolidate its position as Europe’s leading tech holdco.
Klarna (payments, BNPL turned digital bank) preparing for a September IPO after Trump tariffs delay, rebranding as a full-service bank.
Microsoft Azure captured 44.5% of new cloud revenue in Q2, ahead of AWS at 30%.
Google released Genie 3 (real-time 3D world generation) to automate complex game environments – could compress AAA budgets and enable new experiences.
Cloudflare will block AI crawlers by default. It says today’s model is a “broken content economy”: Google returns 1 referral click per 14 crawls, OpenAI 1 per 1,700, Anthropic 1 per 73,000. Envisions blockchain micropayments, though adoption remains uphill.
Meta is spending billions on AI hardware and hundreds of millions on researchers. Strong earnings show it can flex revenue levers, but concerns grow over harmful chatbot outputs, including flirtatious responses to children and biased content.
Palantir cautionary tale: in 2000 Cisco was valued >200x profit, later delivering 4.5x EPS but a far lower market cap. Palantir’s Q2 revenue hit $1B (+48% YoY; Rule of 40 = 94), yet valuation is ~$430B – >600x last year’s earnings, ~120x sales. To grow into it, revenue would need to 5.6x in 5 years (>40% CAGR at scale) – historically rare even for Google, Meta, Nvidia.
Big Dogs
OpenAI restored older models (e.g., 4o) after user pushback, lifted usage limits, and promised more transparency.
Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4 supports 75,000 lines of code and 750,000-word prompts (5x prior). Targeted at enterprise APIs handling complex workflows. Also seeking up to $5B at a $150–170B valuation, clamping down on SPVs and preferring GP capital.
Perplexity reportedly offered Google $34.5B for Chrome and launched its own AI browser, Comet. Also raising at a $20B valuation.
Cohere raised $500M led by Radical and Inovia, with AMD, Nvidia, PSP, Salesforce participating. Valued at $6.8B.
EliseAI (workflow automation for housing & healthcare) raised ~$200M at $2B+ led by a16z.
Cognition (autonomous AI software engineers) raised $500M at a $9.8B valuation led by Founders Fund, with 8VC, Avenir, Khosla, Lux, Pear.
Rivos (RISC-V AI chips) raising $400–500M at a ~$2B valuation.
The AI boom has minted 498 unicorns worth $2.7T – 100 founded since 2023 – and at least 15 new billionaires.
Venture Capital Insights
Mamoon Hamid (Kleiner Perkins) calls AI the “super cycle of all super cycles.” He frames the prize as labour substitution, not just productivity software – ~60% of global GDP is labour.
David Kaye on Grammarly–Superhuman: “Distribution beats everything.” AI features get cloned; the durable edge is user access – tens of millions vs. tens of thousands.
Elad Gil sees early winners coalescing in LLMs, code assistants, legal, medical scribing, customer service, and search. Likely next: accounting, healthcare compliance, financial tooling, sales agents, cybersecurity. Frictions: capability gaps in reasoning, GTM missteps, incumbent lock-in, slow buying cycles, scarce founding teams, and 6–12 month enterprise build cycles.
Venture Geopolitics
China shipbuilding consolidation – CSSC and CSIC to merge, forming the world’s largest shipbuilder: $18B revenue, 530 vessels on order, 55% global output. Civil–military fusion strengthens both commerce and navy.
Strategic interdependence (John Waldron, Goldman Sachs): the era of lowest-cost, JIT globalisation is giving way to resilience-first supply chains.
US imports from China fell from 22% (2017) to 13.4% (2024).
FDI into China down >90% in 4 years; new Chinese investment into the US down >95% since 2016.
Capital rerouted to SE Asia, the Middle East, LatAm. Companies build multi-node footprints to absorb shocks.
US VCs are squeezing European peers – H1 2025 saw a 73% YoY rise in US VCs making 2+ AI deals in Europe. Eight of Europe’s top 10 AI-native rounds had at least one US investor; eight had three or more.
Credit as capital allocator – $1.5T of US/EU investment-grade bonds issued in H1 2025. Euro-denominated share rose to 40%. Spreads near 20-year lows despite volatility.
US sovereign risk – national debt >$37T, up $800B since July (~$22B per day). Meanwhile, bitcoin’s 90-day vol fell below 40 for the first time this year and is now ~2x gold vol.
US stake in Intel – reports that CHIPS grants may convert to up to 10% equity stakes. Opens the door to partial state ownership of domestic chip champions.
Mistral (foundation models) reportedly raising $1B from Gulf sovereigns, including Saudi and UAE funds – deepening Middle-East capital ties and sovereignty questions.
China supply strategy – CATL shut a major lithium mine in Jiangxi (6% global output), hinting at early supply rationalisation in strategic commodities.
US semiconductor tariffs – Trump floated 200–300% rates that escalate over time. AMD, Broadcom, Nvidia sold off on the headlines.
Data-centre capex – Morgan Stanley sees ~$3T global spend by 2029, roughly France’s GDP.
Big Tech into power – Amazon, Microsoft, Google are building or buying power plants to feed data centres. Households and SMEs risk higher electricity prices as grids tighten.
Strategic Sectors
Defence
Europe rearming – ammunition and missile capacity expanding at ~3x peacetime rates since Russia’s invasion.
Financial stakes in defence startups are accelerating: HarmattanAI (French drones, <2 years old) raising $200M; Tekever (Portuguese surveillance-as-a-service) reached unicorn status with NATO Innovation Fund backing; CSG (Czech arms maker) weighing an IPO.
Anthropic tightened Claude restrictions with explicit bans on nuclear/chemical/biological/radiological weapons, malware, and cyber exploits.
Deepfake fraud risk – AI-fuelled cheating and scams are pushing firms like Google, Cisco, McKinsey back to in-person hiring.
AI
Political manipulation risk – a UK study found chatbots from OpenAI, Meta, xAI, Alibaba can shift users’ political views in under 10 minutes.
In the UK, Jade Leung (AI Safety Institute) replaces Matt Clifford in the government AI advisory role.
Labour dynamics – unemployment is rising, but AI-exposed occupations show lower unemployment than non-exposed ones. Consistent with David Autor: “AI displaces tasks more than whole jobs”.
Quantum
Oxford Ionics delivered its trapped-ion quantum computer QUARTET to the National Quantum Computing Centre.
Space
Skyrora (space launch) granted the first UK rocket licence - a step toward a domestic small-launch ecosystem!