Private Equity 24-Hour Briefing
×Last updated: November 4, 2026, 4:40 AM ET
Venture Funding & Fund Launches
Global venture funding hit $59 billion news.crunchbase.com in October, a 45% jump from a year earlier, driven largely by China's largest startup deal on record. Ted Schlein's Ballistic Ventures is seeking $490M techcrunch.com for new funds as AI-driven demand lifts cybersecurity investing. An ex-Hummingbird investor is planning a new VC firm sifted.eu, according to sources, while former Local Globe partner Yvonne Bajela has closed a $17m debut fund sifted.eu.
Buyouts & Infrastructure
Hellman & Friedman is extending its decade-long ownership peinsights.substack.com of Team System, with Francisco Partners and KKR joining the investor group. I Squared Capital doubled its target peinsights.substack.com after its second infrastructure credit strategy reached $3bn. CPP Investments and Dream closed a $422m peinsights.substack.com Toronto logistics portfolio deal.
Asset Managers
Apollo posted record fee earnings peinsights.substack.com and record deal origination in the third quarter, though marks at Athene pushed the group to a $1.1bn loss.
Governance & Sport
FIFA will open confidential files peinsights.substack.com on its scrapped World Cup private equity plan to members of its ruling Council.
Startups & Technology
Founders may make poor early employees sifted.eu, a Sifted analysis argues, though it still urges startups to hire them. European spinout investors say deeptech VCs remain too risk-averse sifted.eu toward spinouts, and that this is costing them. Researchers found sensitive user data exposed sifted.eu in apps built on Lovable. Professor James Whittington and Dr Ruairidh Battleday unveiled a speed breakthrough sifted.eu from their stealth frontier AI lab, claiming a 724x boost in attention processing. On the media side, the question is whether tech media can survive sifted.eu the rise of AI and influencers.
Coming Up
The TechCrunch Founder Summit techcrunch.com takes place in Boston on November 4, bringing founders and VCs together. Pass prices for the event rise soon techcrunch.com, so savings are available only until then.