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: StartEngine Helped Everyday People Invest $200M in Startups
StartEngine, a securities crowdfunding platform, has helped raise $200 million for entrepreneurs and companies on its platform. The amount covered funding across 53 industries to 439 companies.
Digital Assets: Grayscale Owner DGC Makes $100M Bitcoin Mining Foray
Digital Currency Group (DCG), the owner of Grayscale Investments and CoinDesk, and an investor in blockchain companies globally announced its commitment to invest over $ 100 million in Foundry, a wholly-owned crypto mining subsidiary.
FinTech: Losses Escalate At Swedish Fintech and BNPL Provider Klarna
The red ink at Klarna, the Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) financing provider so popular with shoppers, is splashed rather prominently across its financial report for the six months ended June 2020. Expansion costs and provisions for losses on credits given to customers mainly accounted for the net loss of 522 million Swedish krona ($59.8 million) during the period. That’s up nearly 7X from its loss of 73 million krona in the same period last year.
Digital Assets: Russian Nabbed In Attempted DDoS Cyberattack on Tesla
The Department of Justice on Tuesday announced the arrest of Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, a Russian citizen, on the charge of conspiring to breach Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) network and to infiltrate it with malware.
Artificial Intelligence: The U.S. Lays Out $1B For New AI And Quantum Computing Institutes
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the US Department of Energy (DoE) are together the architects of a $1 billion plan to set up 12 multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional national hubs for research and workforce development relating to AI and quantum information science (QIS).
Venture Capital: Early Cancer Detection Company Freenome Lands $270M
Freenome’s multiomics platform detects key biological signals that portend early cancer. The company trained the platform on thousands of cancer-positive blood samples so that it learnt which biomarker patterns signify a cancer’s stage, type and most effective treatment pathways. Early cancer detection is now possible with a routine blood draw. The biotechnology company announced an oversubscribed series C funding round of $ 270 million.
Alternative Investments/ESG: HSBC GAM Launches Sustainable Equity UCITS ETF
The HSBC Asia Pacific ex Japan Sustainable Equity UCITS ETF is a low-cost, passive investing vehicle for exposure to Asia Pacific equities ex Japan. It tracks customized FTSE Asia Pacific ex Japan ESG Low Carbon Emissions Select Index, an index that integrates ESG (environmental, social and governance), carbon emissions, and fossil fuel reserves considerations.
Private Equity: Nutanix Gets $750 Million Investment from Bain Capital
Private Equity: Nutanix Gets $750 Million Investment from Bain Capital Nutanix — a leading cloud computing company — announced Bain Capital Private Equity’s $750 million investment in the company. Chairman and CEO of Nutanix Dheeraj Pandey claimed “Bain Capital Private Equity has deep technology investing experience and a strong track record of helping companies scale…Bain…
Real Estate: Commercial Real Estate Landlords Partner with Flex Space
Real Estate: Commercial Real Estate Landlords Partner with Flex Space Demand is rising for flexible and spacious commercial real estate. Consequently, landlords are paying attention to these flex spaces and investing in them. Flexible office spaces are rising in demand mainly due to their dynamic and collaborative environments. Landlords are now partnering with flex-space operators…
Digital Assets: Nasdaq-Listed Cryptominer Marathon Acquires Fastblock Mining For $22M
Marathon Patent Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: MARA) will acquire Fastblock Mining for approximately $22 million in an all-stock deal. Marathon will issue 8,658,009 shares to Fastblock, a mining-as-a-service company, in a private placement transaction. Marathon shares closed Wednesday at $2.54.
Artificial Intelligence: UC Davis Awarded $20M Grant For Researching Next Gen Food Systems
UC Davis has received a grant of $20 million for a research institute to integrate artificial intelligence in food systems. The project is one part of a national drive worth $ 140 million being conducted by the National Science Foundation involving research universities and agencies.
Alternative Investments: SEC Revamps Definition of “Accredited Investor” For Private Capital Markets
The SEC on Wednesday amended its definition of “accredited investor,” a term that drew a line between high-earning, deep-pocketed investors and retail investors for access to often lucrative opportunities in the private capital markets. Also known as “alternative investments,” these markets include, for example, venture capital, hedge funds, private equity, and real estate.
Venture Capital: VCs And Startups Rejoice – The NYSE Has An Alternative To IPOs
In a ruling Wednesday, the SEC gave the New York Stock Exchange the green light to let companies raise capital through a “Primary Direct Floor Listing” process. Before this decision, private companies could use the direct method to list their shares on the stock exchange but did not themselves receive any of the proceeds from the IPO. That’s because this route allowed existing investors in those companies to sell their shares on the market (“Selling Shareholder Direct Floor Listing”), with no new capital being raised by the company itself.
FinTech: TipRanks and Markets.com Bring Quant Investing to Retail Investors
TipRanks, the Israeli data company and fintech that provides rankings on financial analysts, has tied up with Markets.com, an online broker, to bring quantitative models to the latter’s platform. Gone are the days when these sophisticated tools were available only to hedge funds and banks – the everyday investor can now dip their toes into the world of financial algorithm-powered investing.
Hedge Funds: Hedge Funds Mount Pressure on EU Loophole
Hedge Funds: Hedge Funds Mount Pressure on EU Loophole European regulators are attempting to close a loophole that allows front-running. The London Stock Exchange Group and Euronext NV claim that the EU should instill more restrictions to monitor brokers’ trades on price inquiries from their clients. However, traders will gain knowledge from a security before…
Private Equity: Private Equity Company Buys St. Petersburg Company Compulink
Private Equity: Private Equity Company Buys St. Petersburg Company Compulink St. Petersburg company Compulink Cable Assemblies is now under new ownership. The company manufactures cables and harnesses for both military and commercial purposes. kSARIA Corp. is the company that bought Compilink. kSARIA specializes in providing mission-critical connectivity solutions for defense and aerospace markets. The company…
Artificial Intelligence: Verta Pioneers AI/ML Model Management System
Verta, a startup founded by MIT CSAIL graduate Manasi Vartak, develops software to help data science teams manage their Machine Learning (ML) models.
“Between the difficulty of managing model versions, rewriting research models for production, and streamlining data ingest, the development and deployment of production-ready models is a frustrating struggle for small and large companies alike,” Verta says on its website. Verta announced Tuesday its Series A funding of $10 million led by Intel Capital with participation from General Catalyst who led the seed round.
Liquid Alternatives: A Potential Golden Era Afoot For Liquid Alternatives
Davin Hood, managing director at Cor Capital, a Melbourne-based investment manager, feels that now is not a good time to ignore alternatives. “A fundamental economic standpoint is clearly one of a high degree of risk and traditional asset allocations have been heavily tied to equity market growth,” he observes. Hood advocates an absolute return mindset that focuses on the reduction of drawdowns to allow for the power of compounding of returns.
Venture Capital: ReliaQuest Reels In Over $300M In Funding Round Led by KKR
ReliaQuest, a global leader in cybersecurity, protects enterprises from security breaches. It announced Tuesday its fundraising of over $300 million in growth financing in a round led by global investment firm KKR. Ten Eleven Ventures and ReliaQuest founder and CEO Brian Murphy also participated in the round.
Digital Assets: Crypto Exchange FTX Snaps Up Portfolio Tracker Blockfolio for $150M
FTX is a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange that offers spot and futures trading on various cryptocurrencies, the world’s first liquid cryptocurrency index future, futures that settle to the absolute change in the price of a coin over time, options, leveraged tokens, and other such innovative crypto products. The institutional-focused exchange acquired Blockfolio, a portfolio tracker that supports over 10,000 cryptocurrencies and blockchain assets across 500+ exchanges.
FinTech: Global Payments Company WorldRemit Acquires Africa-Focused Sendwave
WorldRemit, a cross-border and worldwide payments processor, announced Tuesday its acquisition of Sendwave, an app-based remittance company that focuses on recipients in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and East Africa.
Hedge Funds: Hedge Fund Gains from Wildfires Bet
Hedge Funds: Hedge Fund Gains from Wildfires Bet Prominent hedge fund Baupost Group received over $3 billion in July from its bet on insurance claims. These claims were targeted against PG&E Corp. which was connected to California wildfires. Baupost Group saw a massive profit from this buyout. According to Bloomberg, Baupost bought some of the…
Private Equity: Southeast Asian Private Equity Has $8.7 Billion to Spend
Private Equity: Southeast Asian Private Equity Has $8.7 Billion to Spend Despite the Coronavirus pandemic, private equity companies in Southeast Asia are sitting on a lot of cash. In fact, the pandemic has created more opportunities for these companies. One company is Ascent Capital Partners — a Singapore company planning to invest in tech, education,…
Alternative Investments/ESG: Global AUM in ESG ETFs and ETPs Shoots Past $100B End-July
ETFGI reports that inflows into global ESG ETFs and ETPs during the month of July were $6.76 billion. That brought the total inflows into these funds for the year 2020 to date to a record of $38.78 billion, more than triple the figure of $12.37 billion in 2019 at the same time. In another indicator of the bullish fervor in favor of ESG, inflows for the first seven months of the year have already far exceeded the inflows of $26.71 billion received during the entirety of 2019.