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# Less Data, More Billions
- URL: https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/less-data-more-billions/
- Published: 2026-10-23T17:19:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T17:50:50.000Z
- Author: Jose Kont
- Tags: The Daily Dealflow

Hi, and welcome to a new edition of [The Daily Dealflow](https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/tag/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

Flapping Airplanes, an AI lab that launched nine months ago, raised a $1B Series A co-led by Index and Lux, at a $6B valuation reported by Bloomberg. Earlier backers Sequoia, GV and Kleiner Perkins also joined, and Valor, Atreides, A\* and Nvidia are listed among its investors – [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/21/year-old-ai-lab-flapping-airplanes-raises-1b-at-a-6b-valuation/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Why This?:** The lab is betting that AI can get good with far less training data, and its co-founder Asher Spector argues that would make the technology much easier to deploy across the economy. 

**Positive Context:**

- The company started with a $180M seed round from GV, Sequoia and Index at a $1.5B valuation, so its value has roughly quadrupled in nine months. The founders are Aidan Smith, a former Thiel fellow who worked at Neuralink during college, and brothers Asher and Ben Spector, both Stanford graduates.
- Its technology is a "megakernel" framework that runs training, inference and other tasks together on a GPU to cut idle chip time.

**Zoom in:** Co-founder Ben Spector previously founded Prod, a student-run startup accelerator that Sequoia partner David Cahn describes as a major talent incubator in Silicon Valley.

> The lab says it wants to build intelligence "**without ingesting half the internet,"** as Flapping Airplanes put it to [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/21/year-old-ai-lab-flapping-airplanes-raises-1b-at-a-6b-valuation/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/10/flappy-airlines.webp)

## 💰 Venture Capital

*Submit a deal for The Daily Dealflow newsletter via DM* [*here on LinkedIn*](https://www.linkedin.com/company/theinvestorsociety/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com)*.*

**Otter.ai (US) – $320M**, non-equity growth financing from General Catalyst for its AI meeting transcription and workflow platform. Founded by Sam Liang and Yun Fu, Otter is chasing enterprise customers without shareholder dilution—but this cash comes with a repayment tab – [The Investor Society](https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/otter-ai-takes-us-320m-from-general-catalyst-to-push-ai-notetaker-into-enterprise/).

**Whop (US) – $200M, Series D**, at a $5.1B valuation, a platform where people earn income by running online businesses. Sequoia and Shopify Ventures co-led, and CEO and co-founder Steven Schwartz says the company takes "inspiration from the traditional economy." About 25,000 operators generate roughly $550M a month on the platform, which has handled more than $7B in transactions across 185 countries. It is the second $200M raise this year, after a Tether investment in February at a $1.6B valuation – [FinTech Global](https://fintech.global/2026/10/22/whop-raises-200m-series-d-at-5-1bn-valuation/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Mural (Latin America) – $15M, Series A**, financial infrastructure, licenses and controls that let other companies run financial products. Tether led, with North Island Ventures and existing investors including Argentine entrepreneur Wences Casares. CEO and co-founder Sinclair Toffa says the money goes to global expansion and AI-agent finance, and the company is hiring a country manager for Argentina. Mural has processed $2.1B in payments across 128 countries since its API launched in 2025, and 2026 volume is already nearly six times last year's total – [La Nación](https://www.lanacion.com.ar/tecnologia/levantaron-us28-millones-y-ahora-buscan-expandirse-en-la-argentina-y-otros-paises-de-latinoamerica-nid20102026/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Mach9 (US) – $34M, Series A**, AI-powered CAD software that turns survey data into a first-draft infrastructure plan. First Round Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners co-led, with Prudence and Quiet Capital. Founder Alex Baikovitz started out building inspection hardware, then dropped "Robotics" from the name after concluding the real pain was in engineers' workflows. The private beta has nearly 100 customers and more than 2,500 projects – [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/21/mach9-raises-34m-after-pivoting-to-ai-cad-software/?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Peak Energy (US) – $108M, Series B** led by GM Ventures, with Eclipse and Xora Innovation participating, for sodium-ion battery storage targeting grids and AI data centers. Co-founded by CEO Landon Mossburg, Peak says its passively cooled systems need neither water nor air conditioning—batteries that skip the AC bill – [The Investor Society](https://www.theinvestorsociety.com/peak-energy-gm-leads-us-108m-bet-on-sodium-ion-batteries-for-ai-data-centers/).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-23-at-9.51.28---AM.png)

Samsung is expected to remain the leading manufacturer in the global foldable smartphone market in 2026\. This is according to a forecast by market research firm Counterpoint. Apple follows in second place with a 25 percent market share, despite its first foldable phone shipping only tomorrow - well into the 2026's fourth quarter. Despite a short sales window in 2026, Counterpoint projects sales of up to six million foldable iPhone Duos, as Apple is hitting the important year-end business with its new release. This is despite the Duo being its most expensive phone so far. Source: Statista.

## 🏛️ Private Equity

**Prudential Financial's Brazil and Mexico units (Brazil/Mexico)** – $4.03B in cash, carve-out sale to French insurer CNP Assurances, with closing expected in the second half of 2027\. Morgan Stanley advised Prudential and Goldman Sachs advised CNP. It continues Prudential's exit from emerging markets after earlier sales in Indonesia, South Africa and Kenya, and CEO Andy Sullivan wants to cut the number of countries it operates in from more than a dozen to about a half – [Investing.com](https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/prudential-sheds-brazil-mexico-units-to-cnp-for-4-billion-as-it-narrows-its-focus-4959716?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Chicago Parking Meters (US)** – undisclosed price, infrastructure buyout by Stonepeak, completed after a Chicago City Council vote on September 29\. The sellers were a consortium of Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, Allianz and an Abu Dhabi Investment Authority subsidiary. The system covers more than 38,000 metered spaces, nearly 10,000 of them downtown, and its operator has invested about $100M in modernization since 2009 – [Business Wire](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261020584656/en/Stonepeak-Completes-Acquisition-of-Chicago-Parking-Meters?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Fraser Shipyards (US)** – undisclosed price, exclusive agreement for Wildcat Defense, part of family office Wildcat Equity Partners, to buy Fraser Industries in Superior, Wisconsin. Wildcat expects to invest $350M in the yard – [Business Wire](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261021883837/en/Wildcat-Defense-Enters-Into-Exclusive-Agreement-to-Acquire-Fraser-Shipyards?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

## 📈 Public & Capital Markets

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/10/Opening-Market-Figures-----Oct-23@1x.png)

**Anthropic (US)** – IPO preparation, AI. A confidential draft prospectus shows Anthropic may owe more than $600B in future computing costs before its planned November IPO, and Brew Markets reports $16.3B in first-half 2026 revenue – [Brew Markets](https://www.brewmarkets.com/issues/latest?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Tesla and SpaceX (US, Nasdaq)** – merger speculation. Musk called a possible SpaceX-Tesla combination, valued at about $3.5T, a "good idea," and JPMorgan's Rajat Gupta expects Tesla shareholders to seek a 30% to 35% premium – [Brew Markets](https://www.brewmarkets.com/issues/latest?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Blackstone, CoreWeave, SpaceX and Moderna (US, NYSE and Nasdaq)** – movers. Blackstone rose 8.37% to $118.74 after weaker Q3 results but an upbeat outlook for investment exits. CoreWeave fell about 10% on borrowing-cost worries, SpaceX gave back 9.14%, more than half of Wednesday's post-earnings gain, and Moderna dropped more than 20% after leaked cancer vaccine study results disappointed, on pace for its worst day since its 2018 IPO – [Yahoo Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/live/stock-market-today-thursday-october-22-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-tesla-meta-112217857.html?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

## 📅 ICYMI

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/40/72/4072b0a5-dd13-4755-b3a4-f7b56403df30/content/images/2026/10/image-13.png)

**The New York Knicks' new championship rings** hold nearly 800 diamonds and sapphires, totaling 22 carats, plus a mini Madison Square Garden. A close replica costs about $20K – [The Hustle](https://thehustle.co/newsletters/22-10-2026?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**Musk unveiled a flying car** he claimed could hit 60 mph in under a second. When AI scientist Yann LeCun questioned the physics, Musk replied with a Monty Python line: "I fart in your general direction" – [Brew Markets](https://www.brewmarkets.com/issues/latest?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).

**More than 230 romance-only bookstores have opened in three years**, bringing the worldwide total to about 335\. Romance print sales rose from 18M units in 2020 to 39M in 2023 and hit 51M last year – [The Hustle](https://thehustle.co/newsletters/22-10-2026?ref=theinvestorsociety.com).  
  
*See you monday,*

[***Jose Kont***](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-kont/?isSelfProfile=true&ref=theinvestorsociety.com)  
*The humans behind The Investor Society*