Private Equity 24-Hour Briefing
×Last updated: October 28, 2026, 4:40 AM ET
Venture Mega-Deals & Liquidity
Amazon's stake in Anthropic may prove more lucrative than the venture firms that backed the AI lab early, according to a TechCrunch Venture analysis techcrunch.com of note conversions. Separately, Lovable sifted.eu is offering employees an $80m cash-out at a $13.3bn valuation, a rare secondary liquidity event for the Swedish AI coding startup.
Fund Closes & Raises
Advent peinsights.substack.com raised $30bn across its global fund complex, with its 11th flagship GPE fund beating target and a mid-market fund debuting. Disruptive techcrunch.com closed a $10bn fund to back AI and defense companies, targeting at least ten large bets. October SEC filings also point to heavy fundraising across venture, with 8VC and Benchmark techcrunch.com among the firms raising significant new capital.
Credit & Infrastructure Deals
Ares Capital peinsights.substack.com agreed a $2.6bn deal to acquire Mid Cap Financial Investment Corporation, the Apollo-managed BDC. Blackstone peinsights.substack.com took a second lien within a $63bn financing for Anthropic's Broadcom compute, alongside Bank of America, Citi and Morgan Stanley. CVC DIF peinsights.substack.com completed its majority acquisition of the Algeciras shipyard Cernaval, while OMERS peinsights.substack.com bought a minority stake in Brookfield-backed La Trobe Financial.
Fintech & Strategic Buyouts
Guidewire techcrunch.com agreed to buy Hyperexponential for $1.7bn in cash, a deal expected to close next year and aimed at bringing AI agents to underwriting. Revolut sifted.eu faces Bank of England scrutiny over its product approval process, according to reports.
Robotics & AI Funding
Venture funding to robotics startups jumped 185% in Q3, with the US and China leading a physical AI push, per Crunchbase News data news.crunchbase.com. Founders are being urged to look beyond traditional rounds, as a guide on funding robotics companies sifted.eu lays out alternatives. Meanwhile, Sequoia and General Catalyst sifted.eu reportedly valued an AI startup founded by an ex-police chief at $400m, and Europe's fintech founders sifted.eu are increasingly turning to AI for their next act.
Climate & Sector Themes
Climate tech startups continue to grow despite a broader funding slowdown, as Sifted reports sifted.eu. Europe's used-car market is drawing investor interest as an untapped asset beyond the EV hype sifted.eu. Investors are also considering how to govern AI agents news.crunchbase.com as they scale, treating them like regulated employees.
Coming Up
Blackstone's second lien sits within the $63bn Anthropic financing peinsights.substack.com, and the Anthropic IPO remains a focal point for VC returns techcrunch.com.