31 Jul 2026 3 min read The Daily Dealflow

Jersey Mike's Slices Into Wall Street

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's garages to Buenos Aires' cafés. Let's dive in.

🏆 Deal of the Day

Blackstone-backed Jersey Mike's priced its IPO at $23 a share on the NYSE (ticker: JMKE), raising roughly $1 billion and valuing the sandwich chain at $7.3 billion in one of the largest restaurant listings on record — CNBC.

Why This?: The debut is a live test of investor appetite for consumer and restaurant IPOs, and a signal of how private equity plans to exit its post-pandemic restaurant bets across the Americas.

Positive Context:

Morgan Stanley, Jefferies and J.P. Morgan anchored the book as global coordinators, with the $23 price landing at the midpoint of Jersey Mike's $21–$25 range.
Melius Research initiated coverage with a buy rating and $30 target, noting Jersey Mike's generates over 40% of Subway's U.S. sales with just 15% as many stores.

Yes, but:

Shares opened at $21, below the offer price, and traded down as much as 8.7% intraday — a rocky welcome for Blackstone's exit.
Of the 43.5 million shares sold, only 13.8 million were primary, meaning most proceeds went to existing shareholders cashing out rather than the company itself.

Zoom in: The IPO ranks among 2026's largest restaurant listings even as the broader IPO market stays choppy, underscoring how selective investors have become.

"[Domino's] decade of gains against Pizza Hut, Papa John's and others" is the comparison Melius drew for Jersey Mike's opportunity — Jacob Aiken-Phillips, CNBC.

“Money is an instrument of change” — Chamath Palihapitiya.

💰 Venture Capital

Simile (US) – $200M, Series B, "agentic twin" platform that simulates real consumers for market research and product testing, at a $2B valuation – TechCrunch.

Runflow (Brazil) – R$7M (~$1.3M), pre-seed, governance and orchestration platform that manages AI agents deployed inside enterprises – Startupi.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (US) – $1B, growth equity round, fusion-energy developer racing to commercialize its SPARC demonstration reactor and Virginia grid-scale power plant, lifting total capital raised to $4B – PR Newswire.

Dili (US) – $15M, Series A ($21.7M total raised), AI compliance-automation platform for federally funded infrastructure and construction projects – GlobeNewswire.

Once ranked as the world’s 4th-most valuable bank after its merger, HDFC Bank now ranks 27th with a market cap of just $123B.

🏛️ Private Equity

Intercontinental Exchange (US) – $5.7B, merger, agreed to acquire fixed-income trading platform MarketAxess in an all-cash deal at a 33% premium – CNBC.

Okta (US) – ~$200M, acquisition, buys AI identity-security startup Permiso to guard against threats from autonomous AI agents – TechCrunch.

eBay (US) – $1.2B, acquisition, completes its purchase of C2C fashion resale marketplace Depop from Etsy – PR Newswire.