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Goldman Sachs Asset Management announced its appointment by the UPS pension plan fiduciaries to provide investment management services for UPS’s US and Canadian-defined benefit pension plan assets. And UPS’s North American pension plans have a combined $43.4 billion in assets as of March 31, 2024.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Proteologix, a privately-held biotechnology company focused on bispecific antibodies for immune-mediated diseases, for $850 million in cash, with the potential for an additional milestone payment.

Squarespace, a design-driven platform helping entrepreneurs build brands and businesses online, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to go private by global private equity firm Permira in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $6.9 billion.

Law firm Reed Smith announced capital markets and corporate lawyer Anne Peetz joined as a partner of the Global Corporate Group, based in Houston. Peetz was previously a partner at Kirkland & Ellis.

Mogul, the music industry's top layer for tracking royalties across all rights types, has surpassed $100 million in tracked royalties across all the artists signed up for the service. This significant milestone is a testament to Mogul's commitment to helping artists and their teams understand their business by centralizing many different royalty sources into an actionable hub.

Dentons recently announced the addition of Jonathan Shulan to its Litigation practice as a partner and resident in the firm’s St. Louis office. Shulan represents clients in complex commercial disputes and high-stakes insurance issues.

In-House Health has formally launched its AI-driven scheduling and management platform for modern nursing teams. The company recently raised $4 million in seed funding, led by NEA and TMV, with participation from pre-seed investors Vine Ventures and Longevity Venture Partners. This brings the total investment to date to $5.4 million.

Nami Surgical, a company aiming to transform the robotic-assisted surgery market with a breakthrough ultrasonic platform, has secured $4 million of investment and grant funding. St Andrews-based impact investment firm Eos Advisory led the seed $3.1 million round alongside the Investment Fund for Scotland, which is managed by UK private equity firm Maven and delivered by British Business Bank, Scottish Enterprise, and SIS Ventures. The company was also separately awarded a grant from Innovate UK, the United Kingdom’s national innovation agency.

Aardvark Therapeutics has raised an $85 million oversubscribed Series C financing led by Decheng Capital, with participation from Cormorant Asset Management, Surveyor Capital, SymBiosis, Tetragon Financial Group, Walleye Capital, Laurion Capital Management, LG Technology Ventures, Cantor Ventures, Silver Arc Private Capital, The Prader-Willi Syndrome Association – USA, and existing investors, including Vickers Venture Partners and the Foundation for Prader-Willi Research. Decheng Capital's Managing Director, Victor Tong, Jr., joined Aardvark's board of Directors in connection with the investment.

Avenue Capital Group announced the successful final closing of the Avenue Europe Special Situations Fund V (Avenue Europe Fund). With separately managed accounts, over $1 billion of commitments have been raised for the Avenue Europe Fund from a broad range of existing and new investors, including public and corporate pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, and family offices.

Ohio-based DayMark Wealth Partners announced that veteran financial advisors Thomas Hofstetter and Daniel Baron have joined the firm as the Hofstetter Baron Group of DayMark Wealth Partners. Previously a Wells Fargo Advisors team managing $585 million, Southport, Connecticut-based Hofstetter Baron Group advises high net worth families and individuals.

Wealthspire Advisors (an NFP company and independent registered investment advisor firm headquartered in NYC) announced that it has entered an agreement to acquire Walden Wealth Partners (a registered investment advisor firm located in Beachwood, Ohio). And its founders, Karin Maloney Stifler and Sarah Hannibal, each bring decades of experience serving multigenerational clients.

CION Ares Management (CAM), a joint venture between affiliates of CION Investments, a leading manager and distributor of alternative investment solutions for individual investors, and Ares Management Corporation, a leading global alternative investment manager, announced that the CION Ares Diversified Credit Fund (CADC) recently surpassed $5 billion in total assets under management.

FleetPulse, a trailer telematics solution incubated within Great Dane, announced its launch as an independent company. And FleetPulse is now capitalized with $11 million, including seed funding led by Four More Capital. The company has also named former Uber Freight executive Carl-Christoph “CCR” Reckers as Chief Executive Officer.

GoodShip, an all-in-one platform for freight network orchestration and procurement, announced an $8 million Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. This funding round brings GoodShip’s total funding to $15.4 million. It includes continued investment from Ironspring Ventures, Chicago Ventures, FUSE VC, and Cercano Management, with new participation from 53 Stations, Andrew Silver, Nichole Wischoff, and other angels.

Xona Space Systems - a company that is developing a network of small satellites to provide high-precision navigation services - announced an oversubscribed $19 million Series A funding round led by Future Ventures and Seraphim Space. And new investors NGP Capital, Industrious Ventures, Murata Electronics, Space Capital, and Aloniq also joined the round.

Arbelos Markets, a principal liquidity provider in crypto derivatives markets, announced that it has raised $28 million in a mix of seed equity and debt financing led by Dragonfly Capital to build transparency-based trading infrastructure and offer bilateral and on-exchange liquidity in options and futures products. The investment firms Room40 Ventures, Selini Capital and Breed VC, corporate partners FalconX, Circle Ventures, Paxos, P2 Ventures (formerly Polygon Ventures), Deribit, Chorus One, StarkWare and Immutable, and angel investors at Aevo, Cega, Talos, Amberdata, and Framework also participated in the significantly oversubscribed round. Arbelos Markets was founded in 2023 by veteran industry operators and derivative traders Joshua Lim and Shiliang Tang.

Averto Medical, a clinical-stage medical device company pioneering minimally invasive gastrointestinal care, announced the closing of an oversubscribed $30.5 million Series A financing. Cormorant Asset Management led the financing, which was participated in by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, LifeSci Venture Partners, CVF, and other investors.

AI hyperscaler company CoreWeave announced it has signed a definitive agreement for a $7.5 billion debt financing facility led by funds managed by Blackstone, with strategic participation from Magnetar (Co-Lead Investor) and Coatue. The participation in the funding also included Carlyle, CDPQ, DigitalBridge Credit, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Eldridge Industries, and Great Elm Capital Corp. This new funding will be used to develop further CoreWeave's growing fleet of high-performance computing to execute existing contracts with leading enterprise customers and AI innovators.

Vance Street Capital, an LA-based private equity firm focused on investments in North America-based companies that provide highly engineered solutions to their customers, announced the first and final close of Vance Street Capital IV. Fund IV began marketing in January 2024 with a target of $550 million. It was significantly oversubscribed and closed in April 2024 at its hard cap of $775 million.

Altera, a company pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence (AI) by creating digital human beings, announced it has closed a $9 million seed round. This funding round brings the total to $11.1 million since the company was founded in December 2023. Patron and First Spark Ventures co-led the round, joining a renowned list of investors that includes a16z SPEEDRUN, gaming industry veteran and investor Mitch Lasky, co-founder of Valorant Stephen Lim, Supercell executive board member Greg Harper, Duolingo CBO Bob Meese, Vertex Pharma co-founder Rich Aldrich, Vamos Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and others.

ChangeEngine, an internal marketing and people design platform that enables companies to deploy best-in-class programs without requiring employees to log in to separate systems, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. This funding round was led by Threshold Ventures and joined by Struck Capital and Bonfire Ventures. And ChangeEngine also welcomed Josh Stein and Adam Struck to its Board of Directors.

Trinity Capital, a leading provider of diversified financial solutions to growth-stage companies, announced the commitment of $60 million in growth capital to Metabolon - a global leader in providing metabolomics solutions advancing a wide variety of life science research, diagnostic, therapeutic development, and precision medicine applications.

CoLab Software, a company building collaboration solutions for mechanical engineering and hardware development teams, announced a fully subscribed Series B round with $21 million funding round. And Insight Partners led the round, with participation from existing major investors, including Y Combinator, Killick Capital, and Pelorus VC.

Sigma, the cloud analytics solution built natively for cloud scale, announced it has raised $200 million in Series D funding to continue transforming BI through its innovations in AI infrastructure, data application development, enterprise-wide collaboration, and business user adoption.

Accenture announced it has made a strategic investment through Accenture Ventures in Turbine, a predictive simulation company building a platform for interpreting human biology. Accenture’s investment will help Turbine extend its platform to global biopharma companies that can benefit from Turbine’s ability to uncover hidden biological insights, which have the potential to guide and accelerate key drug development workstreams.

Thomson Reuters Ventures (TRV) is a venture firm that invests in companies at the seed and series A stages building in tax, legal, fraud, risk, compliance, insurtech, and fintech. The firm has the full backing and resources of Thomson Reuters. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Thomson Reuters Ventures Managing Director Tamara Steffens to learn more about the firm.

Lynx Dx is a company on a mission to improve patient care through science-based and best-in-class technology. The company was originally founded in 2015 by a group of credentialed and renowned clinical leaders from the University of Michigan’s urology department with the goal of treating prostate cancer patients and improving prostate cancer screening. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Lynx Dx Chief Medical and Commercial Officer Spencer Heaton, MD, MBA, to learn more about the company.

Top Tier Authentics (TTA) is a company that has developed the world's first Experiential Authenticity Platform, enabling instant verification of any product, artwork or collectible while powering new and immersive digital experiences, unique benefits and interactive features. Pulse 2.0 interviewed TTA co-founder Andrew Rosen to learn more about the company.