Good Morning! JPMorgan's private credit trading push is gaining traction after a slow start, while Permira is holding off on launching its evergreen credit fund amid BDC turmoil. And JPMorgan's bet on early-stage companies is paying off, cementing its lead in global tech investment banking.

Volatility is fueling new private equity deals as old assets sit frozen in portfolios. Jeb Bush's Finback Investment raised nearly $500 million for a new fund. And private equity backers are slamming "runaway" legal costs from top law firms.

Plus: Blackstone's data center REIT raised $1.75 billion in its IPO, and Trump's DOJ moved to drop fraud charges against Indian billionaire Adani after he pledged $10 billion in US investment.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Welcome to the AI IPO Era

The IPO market just got its loudest "we are so back" signal yet. Cerebras, the AI chipmaker challenging Nvidia, raised $5.55 billion in the largest U.S. tech IPO since Uber in 2019, then ripped on day one.

Shares priced at $185, opened at $350, got halted for volatility, and closed up 68% at $311.07, valuing the company at roughly $95 billion. Not bad for a company that scrapped IPO plans in both 2024 and 2025.

Cerebras' IPO market cap was already close to $40 billion, a 73% step-up from its $23 billion Series H in February 2026. By Thursday's close, it was worth ~$95 billion. That's more than 4x in four months.

Cerebras had raised around $3 billion from investors including Alpha Wave, Benchmark, Eclipse, Fidelity, and Foundation Capital. Other backers included AMD, Coatue, Bow River Capital, Altimeter, 1789 Capital, DataPower Capital, Flybridge, and Atreides Management. For anyone who got in before the IPO, this was a reminder that the public market will still wildly reprice AI winners when the story is hot enough.

Nvidia is still king, but investors are desperate for credible challengers. Cerebras makes chips built for inference, where the market is shifting from "train the biggest model" to "serve answers instantly and cheaply." CEO Andrew Feldman says Cerebras makes "the fastest token" and is 15x faster than the next competitor.

It also helps to have the right AI names on the S-1. OpenAI launched its first model on Cerebras chips earlier this year and signed a cloud deal worth more than $10 billion through 2028. AWS is setting up Cerebras chips in its data centers, and both Amazon and OpenAI hold warrants.

Takeaway: Cerebras' debut is the clearest sign yet that the IPO window is open again, well at least if you're an "AI" company. The bankers may have left some money on the table with the first-day pop, but in this market it's really anyone's guess what AI companies are worth. With only 31 tech IPOs in 2025 (down from 121 four years earlier), Cerebras just showed every AI company what's possible in the public markets.

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HEADLINES

Top Reads

• JPMorgan private credit trading push takes off after slow start (BB)

• Permira holds off launching credit evergreen fund amid BDC turmoil (Citywire)

• JPMorgan's bet on early-stage companies pays off in leading global tech investment banking (YF) 

• The PE paradox: volatility fuels new deals as old assets sit frozen in portfolios (WSJ)

• Jeb Bush's Finback Investment raises nearly $500 million for new fund (WSJ)

• Private equity backers slam ‘runaway’ legal costs from top law firms (FT)

• Trump's DOJ moves to drop fraud charges against Indian billionaire Adani after he pledges $10 billion U.S. investment (NYT)

• Blackstone REIT raises $1.75 billion in IPO to buy data centers (BB)

• Brookfield says it amassed $2 billion bet on SpaceX ahead of IPO (BB)

• TPG says new OpenAI venture a traditional move for the PE firm (BB)

• Historic chemicals downturn upends a PE firm's big bet on sector (BB)

• Anthropic tightens Claude limits as OpenAI courts agent users (Axios)

• The SpaceX IPO is already upending the stock market (Axios)

• The boxing ring where fighters trade crypto, not blows (WSJ)

• Private capital lost its spirit for airlines, but not airplanes (YF) 

• Michael Carr, longtime top Goldman investment banker, dies at 68 (BB)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Major U.S. indexes hit fresh record highs, led by continued strength in technology and AI-related stocks

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed back above 50,000, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also reached new highs

• Nvidia approached a $6T market cap, while Cerebras Systems surged 75% following its IPO

• WTI crude oil was little changed around $102 per barrel as investors monitored developments in the Strait of Hormuz

• Treasury yields finished mixed, with the 2-year Treasury yield rising back above 4%

• The U.S. dollar strengthened, while gold prices edged slightly lower

Retail Sales Show Consumer Resilience

• Retail sales rose 0.5% in April, marking a third consecutive monthly increase

• Excluding gas stations, spending still rose a solid 0.3%, suggesting consumers continue spending despite higher fuel costs

• Stronger tax refunds and a stable labor market continue helping support household spending

• Initial jobless claims remained near historically low levels, reinforcing the view that labor conditions remain healthy

Trump-Xi Summit in Focus

• Investors continue monitoring developments from the ongoing Trump-Xi summit in China

• Discussions centered around trade, Taiwan, and the Iran conflict

• The tone from both sides appeared more constructive today, with comments supporting stronger economic cooperation

• President Trump also said China would not provide military equipment to Iran and could help support negotiations tied to reopening the Strait of Hormuz

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Klarna ($KLAR) +20% after Q1 revenue hit $1B, up 44% year-over-year — while adjusted operating profit surged to $68M from $3M YoY.

• (+) Stubhub ($STUB) +13% because Q1 revenue of $446M and adjusted EBITDA of $72.1M both beat estimates.

• (–) Doximity ($RGTQ) -23% after the healthcare professional network company’s Q4 EPS missed estimates.

Prediction Markets

• The next great trading commodity is data compute.

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Private Dealmaking

• Recursive Superintelligence, a neolab founded by former Google engineers, raised $650 million

• Quantum Systems, a German drone startup, is in talks to raise around $645 million

• Mind Robotics, an industrial robotics spinout from Rivian, raised $400 million

• Fractile, a developer of inference hardware for AI, raised $220 million

• Create Medicines, a developer of CAR-T therapies, raised $122 million

• UroMems, a French developer of implantable mechatronics technology, raised $60 million

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

BOOK OF THE DAY

How To Rule The World

Description:
A revealing examination from Theo Baker of how elite institutions shape the next generation of power brokers, influence, and decision-makers. Centered around Stanford University, the book explores ambition, networks, status, and the subtle systems that determine who rises to positions of influence. Blending investigative reporting with cultural analysis, it offers a sharp look at how power is cultivated long before people enter boardrooms, politics, or Silicon Valley.

Book Length: 352 pages
Release Date: May 19, 2026

Ideal For:
Readers interested in elite institutions, power dynamics, ambition, and how networks and environments shape leadership and influence.

Power is rarely seized in a single moment, it is accumulated quietly through access relationships and proximity to opportunity.

DAILY VISUAL

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DAILY ACUMEN

Forty Percent

Navy SEALs have an informal rule that when your mind tells you that you are done, you are actually only at forty percent of your real capacity. The number is not literal, but the principle is supported by exercise physiology. The brain runs a conservative governor, designed to protect you from injury, that fires the quit signal long before the body has actually reached its limit. Knowing this is a quiet superpower.

The implication is not that you should grind yourself into the ground in every domain. It is that the voice telling you that you cannot do the next call, write the next memo, push through the next hour, is almost always lying. It is a setpoint, not a ceiling. And every time you push through it cleanly, the setpoint moves, because the brain updates its model of what you are capable of.

The people who seem to have endless capacity for hard things are not built differently. They have just renegotiated their relationship with the voice that says stop.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• 13 ways to avoid investment mistakes are a click away

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• 7 nice-sounding phrases that are really manipulative

• A peak design totebag for everyday use

• You’re about to feel the AI money squeeze

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Memes of the Day

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