Private Equity 8 Hours

Last updated: June 17, 2026, 5:30 AM ET

Fundraising & AI Momentum

Secured €32m for battlefield software as Blossom Capital and Saab backed French startup Comand AI, underscoring continued European appetite for defense‑tech despite a tight capital market. The deal arrived weeks after Clearlake closed a $14.8bn flagship fund, the firm’s largest to date and heavily weighted toward generative‑AI investments, signalling that large‑cap managers can still raise deep pools when they pivot to high‑growth themes. Meanwhile, Series D rounds surged 308% in H1 2026, reflecting a broader shift of growth capital into later‑stage rounds where private equity firms often act as anchor investors, further fueling the AI‑centric fundraising wave.

Deal Structuring & Dealflow Networks

Tax planning gaps surfaced in Nordic leisure travel exit when Altor, Strawberry and TDR sold NLTG’s 26‑hotel portfolio across Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Thailand and Türkiye to Norwegian Air Shuttle, highlighting how sophisticated tax strategies can enhance returns in cross‑border hospitality deals. The transaction coincided with the Luxembourg Venture Days gathering, which linked sovereign wealth funds and family offices to European deal pipelines, accelerating capital deployment for similar multi‑jurisdictional assets. At the same time, founder pitfalls were outlined, reminding first‑time CEOs that missteps in governance and capital structure can jeopardize later PE participation, a caution that investors highlighted during the event’s panel discussions.