Daily Musings

Evening all

Autumn is in full swing. With puddles larger than Mary Poppins' bag, rain coming from directions I didn’t know existed, and my only source of a tan now being the blue light from my desk screens. I’m more incentivized than ever to remain in the office and share today’s musings.

Cheers
Philip

Today’s Stories

Virtual power plant start-up Synergi raises USD 2m in seed paper. Greencode in the lead. Vaens as a new joiner on the cap table. Existing investors Lifeline, APX (first-cheque investor in Porsche and Axel Springer), and Wave Ventures got in on the action as well. The Finnish platform launched in 2023 and aggregates energy assets into VPPs enabling flexible energy use.

David Buller and Laurent van Lerberghe launched KELES - a new VC firm focused on digital European HealthTech. The fund targets the first closing for the EUR 250m fund by Q1 2025. Sweet spot for tickets to be between EUR 8 and EUR 30m. The duo is looking for companies at the inflection point to profitability. Both are veterans in the space - David invested in 17 digital health start-ups as a founding partner at the Ascension Life Fund. Laurent is former CSO at Sanofi and Commercial VP at Abbott.

Uber does what Uber does best. It invents new things. Or at least seemingly new. Pretty much sounds like they just rebranded the concept of a Bus. Then again it seems to be working. Charging USD 18 to take you from NYCs LaGuardia Airport to the city in a 14 passenger bus. Trips go every 30 odd minutes. Three pick up and drop off locations. last year 15% of Uber’s NYC bookings came from airport trips.

Chart Art

September CPI Consensus Forecasts are in ahead of Thursday’s read. Consensus being consensus. Just UBS looking for some additional heat

BOFA is eyeing a low 20 - 25% chance for a hard landing. Top bet still for a soft landing - in line with the current 10Y yields.

On the back of the inflation and the long run inflation expectation (just looking at the 10Y yields is revealing), US citizens are grappling with living costs by taking on multiple jobs. More than 8.7m people in the US are working multiple jobs. + 300k compared to the peak in the pandemic. + 600k compared to the 2008 peak. For additional context: part time employment has risen, while full time employment figures have cooled by c. 1m since November 2023.