Good Morning! Jake Paul's VC firm Anti Fund is seeking to raise $400 million for its second fund, more than 13x the size of the previous fund. Anthropic is targeting an IPO as early as mid-November. And Barbie-maker Mattel rose 19% after drawing takeover interest from Authentic Brands.

Apollo debuted daily private credit marks as the SEC sounded the alarm on valuation transparency. Barclays expanded its use of Anthropic's Claude. And Accenture had its best day ever after showing consultants aren’t being replaced but rather are being hired at record pace to help companies figure out how to use AI.

Plus: VCs watch as the IPO window starts to close, and how to manage a personal brand at work.

Coming full circle, Coverd has launched Coverd Packs; your chance to unlock rare cards like Pokémon and others.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

The Great Protein Squeeze

Whey protein has gone from an obscure meal supplement for bodybuilders to becoming a staple that finance bros and Pilates girlies alike use to hit their macros. But the protein craze might have gone a little too mainstream, and whey protein prices have gone off the charts now that Americans want protein in everything from tortilla chips to cold brew.

Whey concentrate prices briefly hit roughly $13 a pound this summer and are still hovering around $11 to $12, well above the sub-$10 levels from earlier this year. Some smaller food companies say they literally can’t find enough whey at any price. 

And one protein’s shortage is another protein’s gold rush. Startups are now racing to fill the gap with protein extracted from some pretty unconventional places. New Zealand-based Leaft Foods makes protein from alfalfa leaves and saw sales jump 600% in the year through June.

The Every Co., which makes egg protein through fermentation, sold out its entire 2026 production capacity during the first six months of the year, and orders ran 10x last year’s level. And Finnish startup Solar Foods makes protein by fermenting a microbe originally discovered in a bog.

High whey prices are already changing what ends up on grocery-store shelves. BHU Foods recently reformulated its protein bars around pea protein after finding that organic whey would cost nearly three times as much as organic pea protein. And consumers may be flexible too, with roughly 20% saying they would switch to another protein source if whey prices increased significantly.

There are limits to the protein gold rush, though. Cricket protein still costs around $33 a pound and, perhaps more importantly, requires convincing Americans to eat crickets. Apparently there are still some lines the protein-maxxing community won’t cross.

Takeaway: After decades of whey dominating the market, food companies are starting to realize that relying so heavily on one source of protein can become a problem when everyone decides they need 150 grams a day. America's protein obsession got big enough to genuinely reshape its own supply chain, and whey, the commodity everyone assumed was permanent, is now undersupplied, and fermented eggs, alfalfa leaves, and peas are becoming real substitutes rather than novelty SKUs. We wanted protein in everything, but now apparently everything is becoming protein.

PRESENTED BY COVERD

Pokémon Cards Have Outperformed the S&P 500 for Twenty Years

Pokémon cards have outperformed the stock market for two decades. Card Ladder’s Pokémon index is up 3,821% since 2004, compared with 483% for the S&P 500 over the same stretch. That’s ~18% a year versus the S&P 500's ~8%.

A first edition base set Charizard cost ~$100 on the secondhand market in 2004. A PSA 10 sold at auction this year for $528K, and buyers spent $450 million on Pokémon cards in January alone.

Coverd Packs offers access to Pokémon cards with a built-in safety net. Any card pulled from a pack can be sold back to Coverd right away, so you’re never left holding something you don’t want.

Every pack is backed by real, professionally graded cards, and the Coverd Packs app shows you the value of a “Max Pull” and total value odds. Once opened, you can have Coverd store it, ship it, or sell it back.

Break into the hottest asset class of the Roaring 20s. Open a Coverd Pack today.

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Jake Paul's Anti Fund seeks $400M for new VC fund (Axios)

• Anthropic targets mega-IPO before Thanksgiving holiday (BB)

• Barbie-maker Mattel draws takeover interest from Authentic Brands Group (WSJ)

• Apollo debuts daily private credit marks as SEC urges vigilance (BB)

• Barclays expands use of Anthropic's Claude in efficiency push (YF)

• Accenture 4Q revenue rises on growth across geographies, industries (WSJ)

• VCs watch as the IPO window starts to close (WSJ)

• Tech companies launching their own programs to train grads because they 'can't rely' on Ivy Leagues (NY Post)

• TPG gets $10 billion for climate PE fund; to close for new cash (BB)

• The U.S. just made it much easier for retail investors to access private markets (CNBC)

• Audax gathers $10 billion for direct-lending deals (WSJ)

• JPMorgan global head of corporate advisory exits amid reshuffle (BB)

• Hedge fund managers lose out on lucrative tax strategy (WSJ)

• Jamie Dimon's third pillar matters the most (WSJ)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Stocks rose as the 10-year Treasury yield eased to near 5.24%.

• WTI crude climbed to about $93 after China suspended fuel exports for October.

• Asia finished mixed overnight, Europe ended mostly lower, and the U.S. dollar strengthened.

Economic Data

• The S&P U.S. Manufacturing PMI was revised to 55.9, its highest in more than four years and a 14th straight month of expansion.

• The ISM Manufacturing PMI edged down to 54.5, modestly below the 55.0 expectation.

• Initial jobless claims fell to 197,000, and continuing claims dropped to 1.70 million, the lowest in three years.

Europe

• Eurozone unemployment held steady at 6.4% in September, as expected.

• European equities ended mostly lower despite the stable labor reading.

• Manufacturing input prices rose on tariffs, energy costs, and material shortages, a pressure point across both U.S. reports.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Mattel ($MAT) +19% after a report that Authentic Brands Group is interested in acquiring the toy maker.

• (+) Accenture ($ACN) +16% because the consulting firm reported better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter earnings.

• (–) Paramount Skydance ($PSKY) -10% after agreed to a two-day, court-ordered settlement conference with the Writers Guild of America.

Prediction Markets

• Last week, oil prices saw their first weekly loss in roughly a month.

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Armadin, a cybersecurity startup led by Mandiant founder Kevin Mandia, raised $255.5 million

• Varda Space, an orbital drug manufacturer, raised $251 million

• GMI Cloud, a provider of GPU infrastructure and inference services, raised $223 million

• CScale, an optical interconnect developer, raised $145 million

• AnaCardio, a Stockholm-based heart failure biotech, raised around $67 million

• Lightfield, a CRM for companies that run on agents, raised $47 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

BOOK OF THE DAY

The Spider Network

Description:
David Enrich reconstructs one of the most consequential financial scandals of the modern era: the manipulation of LIBOR, the benchmark interest rate that influenced trillions of dollars in loans and financial contracts. At the center is Tom Hayes, a highly gifted trader who assembled a network of bankers, brokers, and traders who discovered they could manipulate the benchmark to benefit their trading positions. Enrich follows the group's rise, the culture that allowed the misconduct to flourish, and the eventual investigation and collapse of the network. Beyond the scandal itself, the book provides a revealing look at the incentives, personalities, competitive pressures, and institutional failures inside global banking. It reads almost like a financial thriller while explaining how a seemingly obscure number could have enormous consequences throughout the global economy.

Book Length: 528 pages
Release Date: March 21, 2017

Ideal For:
Investors, traders, bankers, finance executives, economists, and readers interested in financial scandals, market manipulation, banking culture, LIBOR, and the hidden mechanics of global financial markets.

“When incentives reward the manipulation of a system, even the most important numbers in finance can become dangerously vulnerable.”

DAILY VISUAL

Q3 Recap

PRESENTED BY MOSAIC

Reverse LBOs are Here

Higher financing costs and tighter return thresholds have made entry price more consequential than ever. Buyers have less room for error, while bankers increasingly need to understand how far sponsors can stretch on valuation in a live process.

Mosaic’s new Reverse LBO helps answer that question quickly.

Enter a target IRR or MOIC, and Mosaic works backward to calculate the maximum purchase price, entry multiple, or bid premium that supports the required return. As growth, margins, leverage, financing costs, or other assumptions change, the answer updates automatically.

For bankers, that means a faster way to frame sponsor bid capacity, pressure-test valuation, and run scenarios during a process. For PE teams, it means quickly understanding how much they can pay while still preserving target returns.

See a Reverse LBO in action.

DAILY ACUMEN

Brier Score

Most people who make predictions never keep score, which is why most never improve. A Brier score fixes that. For each forecast, square the gap between your stated probability and what happened (1 if it occurred, 0 if not), then average the results. Zero is perfect, and answering 50 percent every time scores 0.25.

Call something 90 percent likely and it does not happen, and the penalty is 0.81. Being confident and wrong is punished far more than being hedged and wrong, which is the point.

Log even ten forecasts a month and you will learn whether your 80 percent calls really land about 80 percent of the time. That gap is called calibration, and it is one of the most trainable skills in forecasting.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Stop thinking others are happier than you

• The human brain reorganizes itself at 4 distinct ages

• How to manage a personal brand at work

• 4 ways to pick a healthier protein bar

• 10 conversation habits of highly likable people

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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