Ackman  just placed a fresh  AI bet on Meta  while quietly dumping Hilton , showing where big money thinks the next growth engine lives. At the same time, Trump  ordered the Pentagon  to lock in coal power deals, yanking old-school energy back into the national security  spotlight. Meanwhile, American Airlines staff  are lining up to protest their CEO  as operational pain spills into public revolt, and Valentine’s Day  spending is set to hit a record $29 billion , turning rom

Mergers & Acquisitions News (M&A)     General Atlantic to Take European Wax Center Private for $330 Million  Ropes & Gray   Google Gets EU Approval for $32 Billion Wiz Acquisition  SecurityWeek   Thomson Reuters Acquires AI-Native Intelligence Platform Noetica  Thomson Reuters   Nebius Agrees to Acquire Agentic Search Provider Tavily  Nebius   Marvell Completes Acquisition of AI Chipmaker XConn Technologies. Marvell   Zenyum, MakeO Toothsi to merge, creating Asian consumer de

Venture Capital (VC) News   Garner Health  Lands $118M Series D  led by Kleiner Perkins . VC Daily   Algorized  Scores $13M Series A  Round led by  Run Ventures . VC Daily   Natilus  Pulls In $28M Series A Financing  led by Draper Associates . VC Daily   Databricks  raised $5B in a funding round  at a $134B  valuation with participation from Goldman Sachs  and the Qatar Investment Authority . Silicon Republic   AI  video generation startup  Runway  raised a  $315M Series E  l

Paramount  just sweetened its bid for Warner Bros , offering to cover Netflix’s breakup fee and pay shareholders extra cash for any quarters the deal drags on. At the same time, China  quietly told banks to scale back U.S. Treasury holdings, fuelling the “sell America”  trade. Meanwhile, legal-AI  wunderkind Harvey is racing toward an $11 billion valuation as  VCs pile in . And in a surprise move, the Vatican Bank  launched Catholic-aligned equity indexes, laying the groundwo

Mergers & Acquisitions News (M&A)    Advent, FedEx-Led Group Agrees €7.8 Billion InPost Buyout Bloomberg   Uber Agrees to Buy Getir’s Delivery Business in Turkey Bloomberg   Lilly Strikes Deal for Biotech Orna Worth Up to $2.4 Billion Bloomberg   Transocean to Buy Valaris in $5.8 Billion Offshore Oil Deal   Bloomberg   Mercuria Is Close to Buying Raizen Assets in Argentina Bloomberg

Venture Capital (VC) News   Crypto bank Anchorage Digital launched  a secondary share sale at a $4.2B  valuation after raising a $100M strategic investment from Tether   TheBlock     AI chip startup SambaNova Systems raised  a  $350M  Series E led by Vista Equity Partners  and with participation from Cambium Capital and  Intel Reuters   UK credit data provider 9fin  is in talks to raise $150M  at a $1B pre-money valuation  Bloomberg     Inference infrastructure startup Gruve.

MrBeast  is stepping into fintech after acquiring youth-focused financial services app Step , marking the creator economy’s latest push into traditional finance. Elsewhere, Goldman Sachs  is working with AI startup Anthropic to automate core back-office roles , Ferrari  has teased its first fully electric sports car , and Big Tech  is preparing to spend an eye-watering $650 billion  as the AI arms race accelerates. All this and more in today's Read It And Eat! Markets Around

Venture Capital (VC) News   Structured-data AI startup Fundamental  emerged forms stealth with a $255M  seed and Series A at a $1.2 billion led by Oak HC/FT , Valor Equity Partners , Battery Ventures , and Salesforce Ventures Yahoo.Finance   Interpretability-focused AI lab Goodfire raised  a  $150M  Series B at a  $1.25B valuation led by  B Capital Bloomberg   Connect Music , a music rights and technology platform for independent artists, raised an $80M  round led by Rockmont

Mergers & Acquisitions News (M&A)     H&F  Said In Talks for Buyout of Payments Firm Bill Holdings   Bloomberg   NatWest  Said to Near £2.7 Billion Deal to Take Over Evelyn Bloomberg   Trump  Backs Television Broadcaster  Nexstar’s  Bid for Tegna   Bloomberg   JBS  Buys 80% Stake in Oman Meat  Plants in Deal With Wealth Fund Bloomberg   Nvidia-Backed AI Startup  Gets $10 Billion in  Blackstone-Led Loan   Bloomberg DSM  Inks Deal to Sell Animal Health  Business to CVC Capital

The AI  boom just crossed a new threshold, and it’s no longer confined to pitch decks, labs, or VC term sheets. From a  $70 million  power grab for the AI.com domain by Crypto.com’s founder , to Anthropic  closing in on one of the largest private funding rounds in tech history, artificial intelligence is now colliding head-on with consumer branding, public markets, and geopolitics. Elsewhere, Japan’s markets are ripping to record highs  on a decisive political mandate . Bitco

A Deep Dive Into Who the Economic Winners and Losers are during Snowfall     "The weather outside is frightful.” Frank Sinatra I was working from home on a random weekday when I took a break to look at the view from my apartment and let my mind wander. Whilst I watched people penguin walk and cars all but crawl, I settled on an interesting thought: who benefits and suffers the most financially when it snows?   That question led me down an incredibly fascinating rabbit hole, t

Mergers & Acquisitions News (M&A)   KKR to Acquire Sports Investor Arctos in $1.4 Billion Deal Bloomberg   Rio Walks Away From Glencore Mega Merger on Price Impasse Bloomberg   Glencore Said to Have Sought 40% of Combined Firm in Rio Talks Bloomberg   I Squared Said to Weigh Sale of $2 Billion Data Center Firm BDx Bloomberg   India’s Reliance Buys First Venezuelan Oil Cargo Since Mid-2025 Bloomberg

Venture Capital (VC) News   Stablecoin giant Tether reduced funding plans from $15-$20B to ~$5B  after investor pushback on its $500B valuation target Reuters   AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems  raised a  $1B Series H at a tripled $23B  valuation led by Tiger Global   Bloomberg   AI voice generation startup ElevenLabs  raised a  $500M Series D at an $11B  valuation led by Sequoia    TechCrunch   Autonomous construction startup Bedrock Robotics  raised a $270M Series B at a $1.75

Big money, big myths, and big strategic pivots dominate today’s headlines. Amazon’s  decision to  supercharge AI  spending has rattled investors and reignited concerns about the true cost of the artificial-intelligence arms race. Bitcoin’s  latest slump is forcing a long-overdue reckoning with its once-sacred reputation as a hedge against inflation and fiscal excess. In the AI wars, Anthropic  is drawing a bold line against advertising with a Super Bowl ad that subtly pokes O

Venture Capital (VC) News   Airrived  Emerges With $6.1M Seed Round  led by Cannage Capital .  VC Daily   Kasada  Scoops Up  $20M  led by EQT and existing investors . VC Daily   Positron AI Nets  $230 Million Series B led by ARENA Private Wealth, Jump Trading, and Unless .  VC Daily   RapidFort  Nabs $42M Series A Round  led by Blue Cloud Ventures and Forgepoint Capital .  VC Daily    Osmo  Announces  $70M in Series B Funding  led by Two Sigma Ventures . VC Daily   Machina  L

Mergers & Acquisitions News (M&A)   SiTime Agrees to Buy Renesas Timing Unit in $2.9 Billion Deal Bloomberg    SpaceX Merger Provides Lifeline for Musk’s Debt-Ridden AI Startup Bloomberg    Texas Instruments Strikes $7.5 Billion Deal for Silicon Labs Bloomberg   Live Nation to acquire Italy's ForumNet, valued at $106 million   Reuters   Investors will receive 0.1433 shares in Musk's SpaceX for every share of Musk's xAI as part of their $1.25T merger Dabafinance   Spanish lend

Intel just signaled a late but serious push into GPUs , betting it can still muscle its way into the AI hardware boom . At the same time, Alphabet smashed through $400 billion in annual revenue as AI-fueled growth turns Google into a $4 trillion titan. Meanwhile, Michael Burry is sounding the alarm on Bitcoin’s slide and the “sickening scenarios” it could trigger across markets, and French prosecutors just raided Elon Musk’s X over deepfake and abuse content . Big tech f

Mergers & Acquisitions News (M&A)     Turkish Defense Firm That Surged 236% in a Year Eyes New Markets Bloomberg   Swedish Streamer Soundtrack Buys Two Rivals in Consolidation Bid  Bloomberg    China’s Tianqi Lithium Plans Sale of Shares in Chile’s SQM Bloomberg   RBI May Pivot to Buying Dollars to Build Reserves, Analysts Say Bloomberg   Anthropic Plans Employee Tender Offer at $350 Billion Valuation Bloomberg    Santander aims to become big retail bank in US with $12.2 bill

Venture Capital (VC) News   Derapi  Announces $7M Seed Round  led by  Earthshot Ventures   VC Daily   Avalanche Energy  Nabs $29M led by RA Capital Management   VC Daily   Kindred Raises  $125M  led by NEA and Figma CEO Dylan Field   VC Daily   Ecovia Bio Lands  Series B Funding Round  led by Pointe Angels    VC Daily    Tomorrow.io Secures  $175M  led by Stonecourt Capital and HarbourVest   VC Daily   GenLogs Closes $60M Series B Financing led by   Battery Ventures   VC Dai

Walmart  just crashed into the trillion-dollar club, proving old-school retail can become a tech-powered growth machine. At the same time, AI fear  wiped $300 billion off software and data stocks as investors started pricing in disruption, not just upside. Meanwhile, Nintendo’s Switch completed one of the biggest comeback stories in gaming history,  and China  just drew a hard safety line on futuristic EV design  by banning hidden door handles  after deadly incidents. Big mon