Daily Musings

Evening all

I love kiosks. There is nothing you cannot get there. All the better that Amazon is becoming more akin to my local corner store. Investing in its kindle, AI solutions and most recently nuclear power. While I am wondering when my local kiosk will also launch genAI or at least build nuclear fusion reactors, I share my musings.

Cheers
Philip

Today’s Stories

LPs are impatient for DPI. Seems Iris didn’t get the memo that exits have dried up. The investor announced a USD 3bn sale of Kyriba to Bridgepojnt and GA. That’s a 3x step up to the valuation attached in the 2019 funding round. All in the company has gotten around USD 20m in funding over time. Iris has backed the enterprise cash management FinTech since its early beginnings in 2010. Having supported them on the global roll out the company achieved profitability in 2019 - at the time also cracked the USD 100m Top Lin threshold. This is exit #5 in the last 14 months. IRIS communicates 10x returns on its 2017 investment. 12x on 2019.

Cybersecurity unicorn Cyera snaps up Trail for USD 162m. Consideration is paid in part cart part shares. Trail had raised USD 35m to date from Lightspeed, CRV and Cyberstarts. This first acqui. comes with news of a major fundraise in the books — USD 200m are planned @ a pre-money of USD 3bn. Compare and contrast to April this year - where the company raised USD 300m @ a pre-money of USD 1.4bn for their Series C. Call that traction.

Chart Art

The ECB goes for the cut. 25bps down we now sit @ 325bps rates. Slowing growth, weakening inflation provide central bankers with the necessary signals to move as markets expected. Yet yields are edging higher on 10 Year Bunds. Seems that markets priced the cut in and higher inflation down the line. Some context on the current macro picture: Eurozone headline inflation fell from 2.2% in August to 1.7% in September. Core declined from 2.8% to 2.7%. Both outcomes in line with consensus forecasts.

For those wondering what mood private markets are in: CCC PIK Toggled Bonds are being priced. Chobani becomes a prime example for market wide yield starvation. At this point famous song stating my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard should more accurately be changed to my yield brings all the boys to the yard