News
Each day, DailyAlts tracks major developments across the alternative investment world. Our content is procured from primary contacts in the industry and secondary sources across the web. Our goal is to give readers the most up-to-date news and engaging experience to open new doors and areas of knowledge. Our stories cover nine separate verticals of the alternative investment industry.
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Chipmaker AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) has unveiled a range of innovative AI solutions spanning from data centers to personal computers. The AMD Instinct MI300 Series features data center AI accelerators, while the ROCm 6 open software stack introduces new features supporting Large Language Models (LLMs). Additionally, the Ryzen 8040 Series processors come equipped with Ryzen AI capabilities.
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FinTech: Chinese Regulators Keep Up Rhetoric Against (Very Large) Fintechs
The barrage of regulatory voices against the “fintech-that-shall-not-be-named” continues. In the latest call to hobble giant fintechs such as the Ant Group, former finance minister Lou Jiwei said regulators should restrict the number of banks that they can partner with.
Venture Capital: Brazilian Lender Creditas Raises $255M To Fuel Expansion
Brazilian fintech and lender Creditas announced Friday fundraising of $ 255 million led by impact investor LGT Lightstone. This fifth Series E round valued the start-up at $ 1.75 billion, more than double the valuation of $750 million it secured last year in a D round.
Liquid Alternatives/Hedge Funds: New OYSTER Stable Return SICAV Fund Replicates Hedge Fund Returns
The OYSTER Stable Return SICAV fund will provide investors with an all-weather strategy focused on delivering stable hedge fund returns to institutional and retail investors with competitive fees, daily liquidity, and transparency.
The fund aims to use liquid exchange trade products to replicate the portfolios of leading hedge funds. At an annual management fee of only 0.8%, the fund will use a proprietary replication process.
Digital Assets: OSL The First Crypto Exchange To Be Licensed By Hong Kong’s SFC
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) licensed OSL Digital Securities to operate a regulated brokerage and automated trading service for digital assets. OSL is now the world’s first SFC-licensed, listed, digital asset wallet-insured, Big-4 audited digital asset trading platform for institutions and professional investors, it said in an announcement.
Venture Capital: Verily, Alphabet’s Life Sciences Subsidiary, Raises $700M
Verily, an Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) subsidiary, focuses on life sciences and healthcare. It announced Thursday a $ 700 million funding raised from its existing investors. These included parent company Alphabet, Silver Lake, Temasek, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and others.
FinTech: Aussie “Buy Now Pay Later” (BNPL) Openpay Launches In The U.S.
Openpay (ASX: OPY), which calls itself a highly differentiated player in global BNPL, announced its US launch on Wednesday. The ASX-listed company already operates in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Artificial Intelligence: Pepsi Deploys AI To Monitor Cheetos Quality
Pepsi (NASDAQ: PEP) goes to great lengths to ensure that its highly popular Cheetos Snacks always have the optimal crunch, lightness, and shape. Consistency of flavor, texture, and color is achieved through careful monitoring of the extruders that produce the delicious snack. Engineers need to constantly monitor variables such as the speed of the snack cutting tool, the ratio of cornmeal to water in the mix, snack lengths, bulk density, and other attributes. For the company, Cheetos is a billion-dollar brand that is produced in 22 countries in more than 50 flavours. No surprises then, that Pepsi decided to deploy AI for quality control of Cheetos’ production.
Digital Assets: Paxos Raises $142 Million in Series C Funding
Paxos, the blockchain infrastructure and financial technology firm that partners Revolut and PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) for cryptocurrencies, has raised $142 million in a Series C round.
Declaration Partners, an investment adviser to the family office of $230 billion private equity giant Carlyle Group’s co-founder David Rubenstein, led Paxos’ round. Mithril Capital, PayPal Ventures, RIT Capital Partners plc, Ken Moelis, Alua Capital, Senator Investment Group and others also participated.
Alternative Investments/Digital Assets: “This Is The Most Interesting Macro Trade I’ve Seen In My Career” (Eric Peters Of One River)
Bloomberg revealed Wednesday that hedge fund One River Asset Management was the newest bitcoin whale on the block after it bought up more than $600 million in cryptos. One River chief executive Eric Peters conducted his trades in bitcoin and ether quietly through November at prices below $16,000.
Artificial Intelligence: In Historic Spy Plane Flight, AI Plays Co-Pilot
On Tuesday, the U.S. Air Force conducted a path-breaking flight test. An AI algorithm (colorfully named ARTUµ in true Star Wars style) rode alongside U.S. Air Force Maj. “Vudu” on a U-2 Dragon Lady assigned to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base.
The aircraft flew on a reconnaissance mission during a simulated missile strike, with core tasks divvied up between human and algo.
Venture Capital: ABN AMRO Boosts Venture Arm’s Firepower By €50M
ABN AMRO has bolstered the cash arsenal of ABN AMRO Ventures, its venture arm, with an additional fund infusion of € 50 million. Last November, the bank topped up capital at the fund by € 50 million, taking it to € 100 million.
FinTech: GoCardless Within Kissing Distance Of Unicorn Status
GoCardless, a British fintech that processes direct debit and recurring payments for business customers, has raised $ 95 million in a round led by Bain Capital’s venture capital arm. The latest round valued the start-up at $ 970 million, a hair’s breadth away from the coveted unicorn benchmark of $ 1 billion.
Digital Assets: Bitcoin Scales $20K; Ruffer UK Bought £550M Of Bitcoin In November
Bitcoin is in the history books today after it suddenly sliced through the key $20,000 resistance like a hot knife through butter. It is now trading above that psychological level for the first time. As this is being written, the cryptocurrency is perched at $20,675, up 5.97%. It has now taken out its previous all-time high achieved on December 1, 2020.
Liquid Alternatives: The Wilshire Liquid Alternative Index Gains 3.19% in November
The index provides a representative baseline for the performance of the broader liquid alternatives space. This figure outperformed the 2.82% return from the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index in the month of November.
FinTech: IBM, GoDaddy Snap Up Fintechs
There’s been a spate of acquisitions of fintechs in the past month. IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced Tuesday its purchase of Montreal-based fintech company and payments platform, Expertus Technologies Inc. Meanwhile, web platform provider GoDaddy swooped on Poynt payments services.
Artificial Intelligence: Machine Learning To Identify Whale Sounds, Warn Ships
Southern resident Orca whales, also known as killer whales, are an endangered species. Researchers at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Canada, propose to use AI to identify them by their sounds, and then warn approaching ships of their presence.
Venture Capital: Hydrogen-Electric Aviation Startup ZeroAvia Gets $21.4M From Amazon, Shell
California-based ZeroAvia, a startup developing hydrogen-electric aviation solutions, announced Wednesday its raise of $21.4 million. The company will use the money to advance its program for the development of zero-emission commercial aircraft. The aviation industry is a major user of fossil fuels and the source of emissions. ZeroAvia’s powertrain uses hydrogen, which produces water when burned.
Digital Assets: MassMutual’s Bitcoin Deal Could Trigger $600B Institutional Demand (JPMorgan)
A note from analysts at JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM) released Friday said that “adoption of bitcoin was spreading from family offices and wealthy investors to insurance firms and pension funds.” In evidence, the note cited the recent investment by MassMutual in bitcoin worth $ 100 million.
Venture Capital: Blade, The Short-Hop Uber-Of-The-Skies, To Go Public Via SPAC
Blade Urban Air Mobility, the helicopter company known for short-haul trips from airports to city centers, is going public by merging with Experience Investment Corp. (NASDAQ: EXPC), a public entity affiliated with KSL Capital Partners. The short hop to listing will make Blade the only publicly traded global urban mobility company.
FinTech: MassMutual Seals Deal To Acquire Fintech Platform Flourish From Stone Ridge
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, or MassMutual, announced Monday that it agreed to acquire Flourish, a fintech platform, from Stone Ridge Holdings Group. Flourish is a digital platform that provides various products and services to more than 350 RIAs that manage more than $ 600 billion of assets. Flourish Cash is the only cash management platform developed specifically for financial advisors and their clients.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Morgan Stanley UK Launches Sustainable Fixed Income Opportunities Fund
The Morgan Stanley UK Sustainable Fixed Income Opportunities fund will primarily invest in global fixed income securities issued by corporates and governments while integrating ESG considerations into the investing process.
Its portfolio will feature an assortment of investment grade, high yield, emerging market, convertible, securitized, and government bonds.
Artificial Intelligence: Seductive Chatbot Xiaoice Sets 500M Chinese Men’s Hearts Aflutter
Created by Microsoft, Xiaoice is an AI-powered female chatbot that has nearly 500 million lonely Chinese men hooked on her charms. Available 24/7, on a wide variety of devices, and for free, she even talked one suicidal man off the parapet. Her fans know she has relationships with millions of other men, but they’re OK with that.
Venture Capital: Prudential-Backed PruVen Capital Launches Maiden $300M Fund
PruVen Capital, a multistage venture firm backed by Prudential Financial (NYSE: PRU), has launched its first fund. The $300 million capital of the fund is targeted at tech startups in insurtech, fintech, healthtech, real estate tech, and enterprise IT verticals. The fund will also invest in horizontal enterprise tech enablers such as data/ML, cloud, DevOps, security, automation, and digital CX.
Alternative Investments/ESG: Inspire Adds Two New ETFs To Its Biblical Range
The Inspire Faithward Large Cap Momentum ETF (NYSE: FEVR) and the Inspire Faithward Mid Cap Momentum ETF (NYSE: GLRY) are two new, actively managed biblically responsible ETFs from the house of Inspire Investing.