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| The Daily Pitch |
| PE, VC and M&A |
| Your edge on global private capital markets |
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AI's next phase: Venture capital is increasingly focused on putting AI to work. VCs are now investing more in AI applications for specific industries. Key numbers from our latest AI VC Trends report:
- In Q4, vertical applications attracted $22 billion across 1,151 deals, surpassing horizontal platforms, which recorded over $16 billion across 408 pacts.
- The shift was notable given horizontal platforms' $31.3 billion in Q3, underscoring a sharp sequential pullback at the model and automation layer.
Download the report |
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| What DOJ shakeup could mean for tech M&A |
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| (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) |
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By Rosie Bradbury, Senior Venture Capital Reporter
Gail Slater, who has led the Justice Department's antitrust division for the last 11 months, is stepping down.
She said she made the decision on her own, but multiple news outlets report that she was pushed out by the Trump administration.
Her ousting could mark a turning point: She has been a vocal advocate against tech monopolies and reportedly butted heads with Attorney General Pam Bondi and other high-ranking members of the administration, particularly over Hewlett Packard Enterprise's recent acquisition of Juniper Networks.
The Trump administration has indicated a more friendly attitude toward M&A than its predecessor, having greenlit several mega-deals, including Netflix’s recent $82.7 billion deal with Warner Bros.
Slater will leave behind several active lawsuits, including a pair against Alphabet's Google and Apple over allegedly anti-competitive practices.
For VCs hungry for M&A dealmaking, Slater's exit will be welcome news. Under Slater, and her Biden-era predecessor, more tech giants carried out “acqui-hire” deals in the race for AI talent to avoid antitrust scrutiny. Such deals have come with mixed reactions from VCs.
Still, M&A activity has been on a tear, with 2025 surpassing 2021 as the biggest year on record both globally and in North America, per PitchBook's 2025 Global M&A report.
Omeed Assefi, Slater's deputy, was named acting antitrust chief, CBS News reported. |
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| A message from Helsinki Partners |
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| Test Europe without committing: 90 days in Helsinki |
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Expansion to Europe doesn’t fail because of lack of ambition, but because of costs and early, irreversible commitments.
That’s why the 90 Day Finn Program helps global companies evaluate Finland quickly and credibly.
Each year, the program provides 15 executives with pre-qualified, senior-level meetings and networking events with relevant partners. Spending a couple of weeks in Helsinki enables clear go/no-go decisions about expansion, first engineer hires, and initial partnerships with Finnish institutions.
For R&D-driven teams, Helsinki’s low operational costs and competitive salary structure deliver higher output per dollar than major EU hubs.
Validate it yourself. If Europe or the Nordics are on your roadmap, this is your chance to pressure-test Finland with minimal downside.
Learn more about the 90 Day Finn Program by 28 February. |
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• Anthropic's $30 billion Series G puts it just ahead of OpenAI in the AI fundraising race, intensifying competitive pressure between the two biggest LLM developers as they race to go public sometime this year. Find out more
• Startup valuations have never been this top-heavy, with the 10 largest startups now controlling a record 51.8% of total unicorn value. Read more
• US investors' interest in Europe continues to grow as they seek to diversify from their crowded home market and look for deals trading at a discount. See which countries benefited |
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| Nuveen enters PE big leagues with Schroders acquisition |
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By Rod James, Senior Private Equity Editor
The £9.9 billion ($13.3 billion) acquisition of Schroders by Nuveen is not only one of the largest ever acquisitions of an asset management firm, but it also has significant implications for the competitive dynamics of the private markets.
The combined entity will have $414 billion of private AUM, placing it among the 10 largest pools of illiquid capital in the world. It might place even higher if public assets managed by the other firms on the list are subtracted from their AUM totals, a tricky task. |
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Schroders has around $111 billion in private assets across equity, real assets and credit. Among the PE offerings it brings to the table is a $25.5 billion investment program that makes primary commitments and co-investments in lower-middle-market and mid-market buyout, growth and VC funds.
It also has a series of funds focused on smaller GP-led secondary deals. The unit had invested $3.5 billion as of June 30, Schroders said.
Among other properties, Nuveen owns Churchill Asset Management, a $63 billion investment firm focused on mid-market senior and junior lending in North America. And in 2022, it acquired one of Europe's largest independent private debt managers, Arcmont Asset Management, bringing in an additional $21 billion of committed capital.
Even with all these properties, private markets will account for only roughly 17% of the combined entity, whose total AUM is around $2.5 trillion.
The combination of Nuveen and Schroders represents the second-largest M&A deal involving a financial asset manager since 2015, according to PitchBook data. The largest was also centered on a Europe-based firm, Aberdeen Asset Management, which combined with Standard Life in 2017 to try and match its US rivals for scale. Of the top five on the list, three were done, in part, to boost the acquirer's private credit AUM. |
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Smart reads that caught our eye.
• Forget the K-shaped economy, and start visualizing the letter E instead. New analysis shows that middle-class consumers are on a unique path, creating a distinction between the wealthy and low-income categories. [Fortune]
• Even as Saudi Arabia’s economy booms, many young Saudis face stagnant wages, rising costs and a fraying social contract under Vision 2030. [The Economist]
• A Paris trial lays bare the alleged mechanics of a multimillion-euro insider trading scheme tied to Air Liquide’s takeover of Airgas. [Bloomberg] |
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| Since yesterday, the PitchBook Platform added: |
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