The Daily Dealflow

Buy Low, Cut Deep, Repeat

Hi, and welcome to a new edition of The Daily Dealflow — the 5-minute briefing that gives you clear context on capital flows and market-moving trends across the Americas, from Silicon Valley to Buenos Aires. Let's dive in.

🏆 Deal of the Day

Bending Spoons, the Nasdaq-listed Milan software conglomerate led by CEO Luca Ferrari, signed a definitive agreement to acquire San Francisco's Airtable in an all-cash deal valuing it at $1.285B in enterprise value (~$2.25B implied equity value) — its first acquisition since its July IPO – The Investor Society.

Why This?: It's the clearest data point yet on how the 2021 software boom is unwinding, and it puts a widely used American enterprise tool — 80% of the Fortune 100 runs on it — under new European ownership.

Positive Context:

Airtable still carries $480M in ARR growing above 20% year-over-year, with 500,000+ organizations running workflows on it — the business keeps growing even as the price cratered.
Bending Spoons has lifted revenue per employee from $1.12M to $2.57M since 2023 through this exact playbook, and says it has identified 1,000+ acquisition targets worth $400B in combined revenue.

Yes, but:

The price is under 3x ARR for a business growing above 20% — a multiple normally reserved for declining companies, signaling doubt that no-code tools survive AI's rise.
Bending Spoons' track record is blunt: roughly 75% of WeTransfer's staff and nearly all of Evernote's were cut after acquisition.

Zoom in: Airtable peaked at an $11B valuation in its December 2021 Series F, backed by Salesforce and Michael Dell — this deal prices it about 80% below that high.

"Partnering with Bending Spoons gives us the resources and long-term commitment needed to pursue our vision." — Howie Liu, Airtable co-founder and CEO, The Investor Society

💰 Venture Capital

RWX (US) – $12M, Series A, development cloud where engineers and AI coding agents build, test, and validate software – The Investor Society

Lumilens (US) – $700M+, Series C, optical-interconnect platform for AI data-center networking, emerging from stealth at a $5.51B valuation – FinSMEs.

Advocate Technologies (US) – $18M, Seed, commercial insurance benchmarking platform that standardizes policy pricing and coverage data for professionals – The Investor Society

Naïve (US) – $28.5M, Series A, API platform bundling payments, cloud infrastructure and incorporation so AI agents can run autonomous businesses – TechCrunch.

Ambrook (US) – $30M, Series B ($59M+ total funding), accounting and payments software expanding from farms into trucking, construction, and real estate – The Investor Society

Waymo is worth almost as much as Uber despite generating only a tiny fraction of its revenue. This is not a comparison of current performance; it is a bet on which company could capture the future value of autonomous mobility. Source: Carbon Finance.

🏛️ Private Equity

Hot Topic, BoxLunch & Her Universe (US) – $350M, buyout/exit, Sycamore Partners sold the retail trio to Spencer's parent after 13 years of ownership, combining six brands under one roof – ROI-NJ.

Brava Energia (Colombia/Brazil) – $521M, control acquisition, Ecopetrol's Brazilian unit bought 25% of the Rio-listed oil producer at auction, lifting its stake to 51% – The Rio Times.

YPF (Argentina) – $405M combined, carve-out, divested two mature Mendoza/La Pampa conventional-oil clusters to Grupo Álvarez–Integra Capital and a Pecom-linked vehicle to fund its Vaca Muerta shale push – Infobae.

MP Global Packaging (US) – undisclosed, bolt-on acquisition, Warburg Pincus-backed Pregis acquired a cold-chain and thermal-packaging business with two Midwest plants – BusinessWire.

📈 Public & Capital Markets

Opening Market Figures, Fri 7 Aug, 2026.

Robinhood Ventures Fund II (US) – $200M, IPO, closed-end venture fund giving retail investors exposure to 80 early-stage private companies – The Investor Society

Braveheart Bio (US) – $382.5M, IPO, a16z-backed cardiac-drug developer priced above range and jumped 66% in its Nasdaq debut – Bloomberg.

Fiserv (US) – earnings, the payments giant cut its FY26 profit forecast after a Q2 miss, sending shares down nearly 12% – AOL.

Cloudflare (US) – earnings, Q2 revenue and EPS beat estimates and management raised full-year guidance, sending shares up 15% after hours – StockStory.

📅 ICYMI

On this day in 2017: Netflix made its first-ever acquisition, buying Mark Millar's comic-book studio Millarworld for roughly $31M to build owned franchises like Jupiter's Legacy – Fortune.

Iran: A deal between Iran and Oman to control the Strait of Hormuz is reportedly in its final stages, but a draft of the plan states that US and Israeli ships would not be allowed to transit the waterway, and ships belonging to countries that have attacked Iran would be barred until reparations were paid.

Foreign markets: are outperforming their US counterparts for the first time in years.Wall Street says the trend will continue, so here are 33 international stocks analysts recommend.

Economy: Initial jobless claims fell below 200,000 for a third week in a row—the first time that’s happened since 1969.

See you on monday,

Jose Kont
The human behind The Investor Society.

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