Daily Musings

Evening all,

Google wins a multibillion antitrust case. Powell cuts, nay, slashes rates. Dortmund wins 3-0. Nothing seems impossible today. Feeling like Alice in Wonderland, who notoriously imagined six impossibilities before breakfast, I share today’s musings.

Cheers
Philip

Today’s Stories

Gigafactory needs Gigafunding. Northvolt needs cash. Money is tight and the EUR 660m round is not going smoothly. Keep in mind: This is already a 50% cut on the proposed original round. The cap table includes VW & Goldman both with c. 20% ownership. They could step up to bail the Swedish company out. The government also seems like an option. All parties have yet to deliver comments.

VCs love the moon. At least moon investments. Intuitive Machines is taking this to heart and scored a USD 4.8bn contract with NASA. Aim is to deliver a satellite constellation between the moon and earth that would allow communication between astronauts (which NASA plans to at some point permanently place on the distant rock). Context:

• Intuitive is the first-ever company to perform a private moon landing

• Mostly on the back of govvy contacts top line growth clocked in @ USD 41.4m for Q2 this year (+130% YoY)

Germany discovers the internet: Anmeldung finally moves online. The whole shebang is starting in mid-October. With 500k Anmeldungen (registrations) annually streamlining the process lowers the roadblock to moving and tech expats moving to Berlin significantly. The initiative is aptly named: Anmeldung für alle… that can find a flat

European Tech gets fresh cash tailwind as Headline raises USD 865m for growth stage investments. The global VC has emphasised their renewed focus on the European ecosystem. LP base includes Otto, Porsche, Schwarz Group, KfW and Aware (Aussie Pension)

Learning how to play the triangle just became easier. Sirius - Berlin-based online music school - raised USD 4m in seed. Led by Market One Capital. EdTech - particularly musical education - is on my radar. I dove deeper in the space a while back when MacQuarie‘s Direct Lending Team started financing a wave of education acquisitions. Musical education seems particularly location and in-person-dependent. With the help of AI to match students to the right teacher and learning setting (such as virtual group lessons) Sirius aims to change that.

Charts Art

J Powell = 105 to 114 wrong economists. I don’t watch baseball much but this betting average seems low. Powell delivers the 50bps cut traders had been anticipating. Why the Jumbo cut? A few soundboards from the press conference:

Lots of talk about derisking the system. I imagine the massive short-term maturity wall hitting the US Economy plays a mentionable part in the decision. Refinancing at cheaper rates may unburden the system significantly. Some additional sentiment around the greenback weakening on the lower US yields. Should enhance the country’s export strength.

Worth mentioning: The 2-year yield dropped significantly. 10-year yields rise. The key spread making up the 2/10 yield curve steepens. Shows investor expectations that the cuts should strengthen the economy, drive growth, and inflation and eventually require higher rates again.