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| The Daily Pitch |
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⏳ Anthropic could be next in the mega IPO line. When the company publicly files its S-1, the financials it reveals will have big implications for the entire AI industry. Read more in our recent analyst note
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| With its $60B Cursor deal, SpaceX tries to spend its way into AI race |
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By Jacob Robbins and Rosie Bradbury, PitchBook News
Just days after its record-setting Nasdaq debut, SpaceX officially agreed to buy Anysphere, the startup behind AI coding tool Cursor, in a $60 billion all-stock deal.
The deal also positions SpaceX as one of the largest buyers of VC-backed companies, following its acquisition earlier this year of xAI, which valued the business at $250 billion. Going public is expected to add even more pressure on SpaceX to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic in the AI race while it navigates its own restructurings and controversies. |
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"SpaceX has, relatively quickly, pivoted to vertically owning the AI plumbing of tomorrow," said Max Risen, president of M&A at Banyan Software. "It's smart to see [SpaceX] doing an acquisition that's focused on that part of the market, in addition to the compute they already have."
The deal comes two months after SpaceX announced an option to either purchase the startup for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for a partnership with Cursor. SpaceX stock jumped on the news, soaring 13% and propelling SpaceX's market cap past Amazon to become the world's fifth-most valuable company.
With the acquisition, SpaceX is also gaining one of the fastest-growing startups ever. Buying Cursor gives xAI something it has lacked as a frontier lab: an agentic coding product. Anthropic has Claude Code, OpenAI has Codex, and SpaceX will now have access to Composer, Cursor's own proprietary coding-focusing model.
SpaceX's catch-up strategy, however, signals a massive shift in how it's done business so far.
"For two decades, its edge was building rather than buying," said Franco Granda, a PitchBook senior analyst covering SpaceX and other private companies. "A rich, liquid stock lets the public company flip that instinct and buy capabilities instead." |
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| Exclusive report with PitchBook: Private Equity and the Future of Manufacturing |
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• Big M&A is now the preferred path of tech giants for AI acceleration. Salesforce is acquiring Fin for $3.6 billion, the latest example of a large company willing to spend significantly rather than build its capabilities internally. Learn more
• LongRange Capital is betting over $1.5 billion on Pizza Hut. The upstart PE firm has agreed to acquire the chain, which has been a drag on overall margins for parent company Yum! Brands. Read more
• Our analysts forecast growth for European PE amid record funding but pain for VC through 2030. Read the expert analysis |
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| PE firms want software deals, but lenders don’t want to fund them |
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By Madeline Shi, Senior Private Equity Reporter
Private equity dealmakers chasing software deals have found themselves running into a wall: Some of the industry's linchpins have gone quiet.
The pullback from software lending is widespread across the private credit market. But some major managers that had long been the sponsors' go-to lenders have been particularly reluctant to originate new loans in software, several industry sources told PitchBook.
While some PE firms want to push ahead and buy companies they believe will thrive in the AI era, their calls for term sheets are being turned down—a sudden retreat by longtime partners that has left sponsors frustrated.
"For some of these deals, lenders just say, 'Don't even think about it. We have too much software exposure. We are not going to fund another software buyout,'" said one M&A lawyer, who added they are working on two deals where parties have completed due diligence but no committed lender has been found. |
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The pullback marks a sharp shift for a sector that has long been the driving force behind leveraged buyout activity.
Software dealmaking has been sluggish. Roughly $17 billion worth of US software buyouts were closed or announced in the first five months of this year, about half of last year's pace. Deal count fell to the second-lowest five-month total since 2020.
That contrasts with an uptick in growth equity deals, which typically require little debt financing. PE firms inked 138 such deals through May—up roughly 30% from last year—but total deal value came in at just $2.74 billion. |
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• Data centers are thirsty. Amazon's data centers drank 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025. Despite the looming figure, the company actually used less water than the year before, even as it expanded its AI infrastructure. [The Wall Street Journal]
• Americans are definitely watching the World Cup. The US team's win over Paraguay drew nearly 27 million domestic viewers, pushing back on the idea that no one in America cares enough to watch soccer. [The New York Times]
• A majority of fund managers chose "boom" as the word that describes AI stocks the best, according to a Bank of America survey. The June survey found that most investors believe the fear of missing out is driving trades. [Bloomberg] |
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