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CoreWeave, a cloud computing provider that’s among the hottest startups in the artificial intelligence race, is in talks to arrange a sale of existing shares valuing it at $23 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Roseland, New Jersey-based company, led by CEO Michael Intrator, is discussing a transaction that would allow existing shareholders such as employees to tender between $400 million and $500 million worth of their holdings, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. Terms haven’t been finalized and could still change, one of the people said. https://lnkd.in/gjZTAq3G

Singapore payments company Nium Pte is pushing back its plans for an initial public offering in the US by more than a year, focusing on shoring up its team and growing revenue. Nium, now valued at $1.4 billion, will be ready to go public by the end of 2026, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Prajit Nanu said in an interview. It had previously targeted the second quarter of 2025. Nanu attributed the delay to a long search for a finance chief, saying a new leadership now in place will allow it to focus on IPO preparation. Like larger US peer Stripe Inc., Nium helps companies handle cross-border payments. The company, whose backers include Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte, increased revenue by about 50% last year to $120 million and is now focusing on expanding in regions including the UK and Latin America, Nanu said. https://lnkd.in/ghuZUjmC

Sakana AI sees potential for more strategic investors in Japan as rising US-China tensions spur the country to boost its own AI ecosystem. Growing geopolitical risks are heightening interest in the Tokyo-based startup, which recently announced a $100 million-plus funding round that includes Nvidia Corp., according to Sakana’s co-founder and Chief Executive Officer David Ha. “We think that a strong economy like Japan would want to advance their own AI ecosystem, and we want to be part of that,” Ha said in an interview with Bloomberg TV Monday. He added, however, that the recent funding round gives the company “more than enough ammunition” to develop its technology. https://lnkd.in/gU3XGyHc

ByteDance Ltd. is raising as much as $600 million for its car information and trading platform Dongchedi, according to people familiar with the situation. General Atlantic, HongShan, KKR & Co. and Gaorong Ventures are joint investors in the fundraising round, which values Dongchedi at close to $3 billion, the people said, asking not to be identified as discussing a private matter. ByteDance, the parent of TikTok, initiated a plan to carve out Dongchedi less than a year ago, the people said. They added that Dongchedi shares the same user traffic pool as Douyin, the version of TikTok used in China. ByteDance and Gaorong didn’t respond to requests for comment. Representatives for General Atlantic, KKR and HongShan, which was formerly Sequoia Capital China, declined to comment. https://lnkd.in/ggt82-U2

Salesforce Inc. said it was buying data protection and management solutions provider Own for $1.9 billion, the company’s second acquisition this week. The deal “underscores our commitment to providing secure, end-to-end solutions that protect our customers’ most valuable data,” Steve Fisher, a Salesforce executive focused on data products, said in a statement confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News. Own focuses on securing data across software applications. Since incorporating in 2015, it has received funding from Salesforce Ventures, BlackRock Inc. and Tiger Global. It changed its name from OwnBackup last October, according to Own’s website. The company was valued at $3.35 billion after a funding round in 2021, according to a statement at the time. The Salesforce transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter, according to the statement. https://lnkd.in/guUd94WN

The private equity realm has been pretty active so far in 2024, serving as a powerful “alternative” source of liquidity for technology startups and scale-ups in search of an exit. Just this month, TechCrunch reported that EQT had picked up a majority stake in cybersecurity firm Acronis at a valuation of around $4 billion, following in the footsteps of another exit, in which EQT snapped up enterprise middleware company WSO2 for $600 million. However, private equity has also been busy in the public markets, with some big deals going down to transform underperforming companies with strong growth prospects. According to PitchBook, there were 136 take-private deals led by private equity firms in 2023, up 15% on the previous year. New data provided to TechCrunch by PitchBook indicates that so far in 2024, there have been 97 such deals, meaning we’re roughly on course to match last year’s figure (give or take) if the current trajectory holds. Of the take-private deals that have closed so far in 2024, 46 belong to the technology sector. TechCrunch has filtered through these transactions to identify deals specifically focused on product-centric companies (rather than IT consultancies or services firms), and pulled out all the acquisitions valued at $1 billion or more. https://lnkd.in/d6dr2pnK

BillEase, a digital consumer finance platform in the Philippines, has secured a strategic investment from TPG’s The Rise Fund. The sum was not disclosed. This investment marks the beginning of BillEase‘s Series C equity round, with existing investor Burda Principal Investment also participating. China International Capital Corporation Limited (CICC) acted as the exclusive financial advisor to BillEase during the Series C process. BillEase offers various financial services such as personal loans, e-wallet top-ups, prepaid load, gaming credits, and bill payment. It also includes a buy now, pay later (BNPL) option with interest rates and deals available from over 10,000 merchants and 600,000 QRPh-accepting merchants. https://lnkd.in/giz4zn4i

Sanlam Ltd., South Africa’s biggest insurer, plans to buy a 25% stake in a company backed by billionaire Patrice Motsepe that controls a digital bank. Sanlam’s Life unit will acquire the stake in African Rainbow Capital Financial Services Holdings, which controls African Rainbow Capital Investments Ltd.’s holdings in TymeBank, AI Fund, CrossFin Holdings and Ooba, in a deal valued at 3.9 billion rand ($218 million), according a regulatory filing. Motsepe is Sanlam’s deputy chairman and is the founder of African Rainbow Capital Investments. Sanlam will pay 2.413 billion rand in cash and will swap its 25% shareholding in African Rainbow Capital Financial Services Investments - valued at 1.492 billion - for an equivalent value of shares in the investment holding company. TymeBank, which is also backed by China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd., is valued at close to $1 billion, according to its Chief Executive Officer Coenraad Jonker. https://lnkd.in/ghui9a_Y

ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese owner of TikTok, is tapping banks for a $9.5 billion loan that would be the biggest dollar-denominated corporate facility in Asia ex-Japan, according to people familiar with the matter. Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are the coordinators of the latest financing, which carries a tenor of three years and can be extended to a maturity of up to five years, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. ByteDance’s facility is larger than the earlier-anticipated size — an indication that the borrower is eager to take advantage of Asia’s loan market, which is flush with liquidity amid dismal deal flow. Dollar loan volume, excluding bilateral facilities, tumbled 44% to about $45.5 billion in the first half of the year across Asia excluding Japan. That’s the lowest level since 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. https://lnkd.in/gGxw3igD

OpenAI is getting closer to raising funding at a valuation of more than $100 billion in a round led by Thrive Capital, people with knowledge of the matter said. Thrive will invest about $1 billion in the round, said one of the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the fundraising hasn’t been made public. OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told employees in a memo on Wednesday that the company is seeking fresh capital, without giving details, according to people familiar with the matter. OpenAI has been in early discussions to raise funding at a valuation at or above $100 billion since at least December, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg News late last year. https://lnkd.in/dB753iR7