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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, aims to secure $1 billion in equity financing to compete with industry leaders such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. The company, co-founded by Musk, has already garnered $135 million from investors, as revealed in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
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The DailyAlts Playbook: Why it’s Time to Ditch T-Mobile, Berkshire’s Delta Buy, a Bearish Bill Ackman, and the Global Response to Coronavirus.
THE DAILYALTS PLAYBOOK March 5, 2020 Today, the DailyAlts Playbook talks about why it’s Time to Ditch T-Mobile, Berkshire’s Delta Buy, a Bearish Bill Ackman, and the Global Response to Coronavirus. PRIME OVERVIEW Apologies again for the later delivery this morning. The new T-Mobile update has been a disaster. It deletes calendars. It installs games…
FinTech: Ant Financial Beefs Up Ties With Klarna; Buys Minority Stake
Ant Financial, which owns the Chinese Alipay payments platform and is an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), has acquired a small stake in Swedish fintech Klarna.
Klarna, along with app-based challenger bank Revolut, commands a valuation of $5.5 billion. Except for its recent loss in 2019, Klarna has been profitable, which is rare among unicorns. It offers a “buy now, pay later” scheme that offers shoppers interest-free financing over monthly installments.
ESG: Brown University Dumps 90% of Its Fossil Fuel Investments
Brown University has divested 90% of its holdings in companies that extract fossil fuels. In a letter to the campus Wednesday, President Christina Paxson announced the decision. The school’s endowment will eventually liquidate the rest of its holdings.
Private Equity: Stephen Schwarzman Isn’t Sure the Fed Can Restore Confidence
Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman said it “remained unclear” if the Fed can restore economic confidence following the coronavirus outbreak. The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates by 50 basis points on Tuesday. Fed Chair Jerome Powell is attempting to reduce economic fallout due to the spread of the virus. However, the Dow still shed more than 700 points after the rate cut.
The DailyAlts Playbook: Super “Biden” Tuesday, Roaming Chickens, Fed “Fear”, and Why It Takes Zero Millennials to Change a Light Bulb
We start Wednesday with Super Tuesday. Uncle Joe Biden has completed a stunning consolidation of support across the Democratic party and stopped the momentum of Senator Bernie Sanders. An NBC News poll shows that Biden won across the South in Virginia, North Caroline, and Arkansas. This would give him a lead in the delegate count. It also appears that he won in Massachusetts, Texas, Maine, and Minnesota. And although it appears that Sanders will win California, Biden came in second place and will be viable in that state (as in he will receive delegates).
Hedge Funds: Nikola Corp. Plans to Go Public with Reserve Merger
Electric vehicle manufacturer Nikola Corp. has plans to go public and merge with a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company. That SPAC is backed by hedge fund ValueAct and Fidelity. According to reports, the firm will engage in a reverse merger with VectoIQ Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: VTIQ). The new company will trade under the name Nikola Corp. and carry a valuation of $3.3 billion.
Hedge Funds: Activist Hedge Fund Elliott Management Targets Twitter
Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR), which owns the social media and tweeting platform so loved by President Trump, is under siege. Elliott Management, the feared activist hedge fund owned by billionaire Paul Singer, has accumulated a sizable stake in the company, led by Jack Dorsey.
Hedge Funds: Chris Hohn Looks to End Coal Production as We Know It
Hedge fund billionaire Chris Hohn has launched a platform aimed at reducing financing for coal-fired power plants. The ESG crusader wants central banks to effectively stop the financing of coal power plants that he deems a threat to the global climate.
The DailyAlts Playbook: Tom Steyer’s Suspension, the ECB’s Self-Plagiarism, and Tough Times for Masayoshi Son.
The DailyAlts Playbook talks about Tom Steyer’s Suspension, the ECB’s Self-Plagiarism, and Tough Times for Masayoshi Son.
Artificial Intelligence: The Boston Globe To Automate Content and Data With New Startup
AppliedXLabs, the joint venture between The Boston Globe and Newlab, will create AI tools that will drive data-driven journalism. These tools will automatically pull data from sources that are currently “data deserts” and generate journalistic insights.
FinTech: South African Fintech Jumo Secures US$55M in Goldman Sachs-Led Round
Jumo secures US$55M in Goldman Sachs-led round. It will use the funds to expand into new markets and launch in Africa and Asia. Odey Asset Management and Leapfrog Investments participated alongside Goldman Sachs as existing investors.
There were new, unnamed investors, but Jumo did not reveal details of their identities, what stake they had taken in the fintech and whether they invested in debt or equity.
Liquid Alternatives: Invesco Launches New Sterling Corporate Bond ETF With ESG
Invesco, the fund manager with $1.23 trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2019, has launched in Europe a new, first-of-its-kind, sterling-denominated, corporate bond ETF with an ESG tilt. The Invesco GBP Corporate Bond ESG UCITS ETF (IGBE) is listed on the London Stock Exchange with a total expense ratio (TER) of 0.10%.
Venture Capital: VCs, Wake Up And Smell The ClimateTech Coffee
Andrew Chung, of 1955 Capital, says climate change is the perfect storm.
A huge market is shaping up around ClimateTech, a category of solutions that enable governments, companies, and individuals to combat climate change. There is a sudden shift in investors’ preference for sustainable and climate-friendly companies and products. The once uncared for and given-up-for-dead moniker, “CleanTech,” could become a $4.3 trillion market by 2030 in its new avatar as “ClimateTech.”
Venture Capital: SambaNova Systems Raises $250M for Its AI Systems Platform
SambaNova Systems, whose founders are the crème-de-la-crème of Silicon Valley, raised $250 million in a Series C funding. The startup is at the cutting edge of AI and large-scale computing. It is dedicated to developing “the industry’s most advanced systems platform to run artificial intelligence (AI) and data-intensive applications.”
Alternative Assets: Funds Surpass $10 Trillion In AUM in 2019
A new Preqin report shows that the alternative assets industry has reached “14 figures.” Total AUM surpassed $10 trillion for the first time in 2019. The industry added at least $700 billion to that figure during the first six months of the year. The combination of long-term performance at funds, increasing asset prices, and expected returns helped bolster private asset management.
The DailyAlts Playbook: Buffett’s Crypto Snub, Why the Selling Stopped, Who’s Shorting Airlines, and the Odds of Another Rate Cut.
We start today in Asia, where the road to recovery from Monday’s massive selloff begins. Although the Nikkei lost 3.3% in overnight trading, Chinese markets were largely flat. The Dow is rebounding slightly this morning.
The 100-point gain in premarket hours comes a day after the Dow shed 1,000 points over growing coronavirus concerns. In recent days, we’ve seen a rising number of cases in Italy, Iran, and South Korea.
It was the worst single-day drop for the Dow in two years.
Reality appears to be sinking in. The spread is going to have a significant impact on global GDP. Mastercard (NYSE: MA) and United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL) warned that they’ll both take a hit as a result of the spread. Also, we’ve seen cuts in global growth forecasts at banks like Goldman and watchdogs like the IMF. Finally, Oxford Economics projected that coronavirus could hit global GDP by $1 trillion.
Venture Capital: M33 Raises $260M to Fund “Scrappy, Bootstrapping” Founders
M33 raises $260m to fund scrappy, bootstrapping founders. In its second fund, M33 will continue to back hi-tech startups who grew their way to profitability without institutional support.
DailyAlts Playbook – Why You Shouldn’t Hide Important Financial Documents in Your Fishing Gear.
Today, the DailyAlts Playbook talks Commodity Swings, Public V. Private Gains, Cannabis Expectations, and Why You Shouldn’t Hide Important Financial Documents in Your Fishing Gear.
Fintech: Intuit Looks to Buy Credit Karma for About $7 Billion, Says WSJ
Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) – the firm behind Turbo Tax and QuickBooks – is buying tech portal Credit Karma. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the two companies could announce a roughly $7 billion deal today.
FinTech: Singapore’s Grab To Get $700M Investment From Mitsubishi UFG-Reports
Grab, one of the largest fintech apps used by millions of users to hail rides, order food and make payments, will receive a $700 million investment from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (NYSE: MUFG), Japan’s biggest bank.
Digital Assets: BitGo Goes The Whole Nine Yards; Buys Harbor, Subsidiaries and All
BitGo, the leader in crypto custody services, acquires Harbor, the top name in digital securities. It’s a diversification move aimed at a role in the entire transaction chain of digital assets. In the deal, BitGo gets Harbor’s digital securities platform, as well as its broker-dealer and transfer agent subsidiaries. Financial terms of the transaction are not known.
Artificial Intelligence: Margrethe Vestager to Announce the EU’s New Regulations For AI Today
The EU’s rules set to be announced today will thrust on enhancing the region’s competitiveness but will do so with an emphasis on transparency, oversight, and protection of privacy.
Liquid Alternatives: American Century May Unveil the Very First Non-Transparent ETFs
Two American Century funds may be the first to test waters as “actively managed” ETFs.
Having received the SEC’s approval for its final key filing, Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. is close to launching its proposed actively managed ETFs, also known as “non-transparent” ETFs. The two ETFs, based on Precidian’s ActiveShares model, will disclose their holdings on a quarterly schedule, instead of on a daily basis as other ETFs.
The DailyAlts Playbook: Coronavirus Blowback, Targeting the Astros, Digital Waste, Money Mergers, and the Shop that Predicted Tesla’s Surge
We start the day with the U.S. markets in the red after Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) missed earnings and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) warned about the impact of the coronavirus.