Novel Capital Group has appointed Daniele Bonomo as Senior Director. Daniele is a highly accomplished capital markets and fundraising professional with over 15 years of experience leading complex transactions across equity, debt, and hybrid instruments. He has previously worked at Morgan Stanley for over 15 years, including as Executive Director. Daniele's credentials include:

• £3.4 billion hedged mandatory convertible bond, Vodafone (2019) 

• €1.5 billion mandatory CB, Telefonica (2014) 

• $11 billion IPO, Glencore (2011) 

• CHF 5.5 billion sell-down, UBS (2009) 

In alignment with our commitment to excellence and client impact, Daniele will collaborate closely with the deal team to drive value creation and strategic alignment. Please join us in extending a warm welcome and best wishes as Daniele commences this new chapter with the firm.

The hub, named Kasvuhoone, will host 100 companies and 1000 employees. European renowned startup accelerator Norrsken Accelerator, founded by the Swedish organization Norrsken Foundation, will have a special role in Kasvuhoone, as the anchor accelerator, focusing on impact investments.

The former Machine building Factory dating back to 1899, is being transformed into 15,000 m² of dynamic space that brings together startups, creative industries, and community initiatives to flourish together. Featuring world-class accelerator programs, creative studios, flexible workspaces, and vibrant public areas including a food street, bakery, exhibition area and makerlab, we’re cultivating the perfect climate for European breakthroughs to take root and grow to global impact. The entire on-site ecosystem will encompass over 100,000 m² of office space alongside residential quarters, covering a total area of 10 hectares. 

Norssken Accelerator plans to launch its program in Tallinn as early as next year. Kasvuhoone, being created in the former Krulli mechanical workshop, will be designed as Europe’s most influential business environment by Denmark’s leading architectural firm Cobe. 

Norrsken supports entrepreneurs building solutions to the world's greatest challenges. The Norrsken ecosystem connects more than 50 000 founders, funders and supporters in a global ecosystem dedicated to positive impact.  Norrsken manages award-winning Norrsken House hubs in Barcelona, Spain, Kigali, Rwanda, Brussels, Belgium and Stockholm, Sweden. Norrsken’s five funds have raised more than 750m USD to back exceptional entrepreneurs who combine profit with positive global impact: Norrsken VC, Norrsken22, Norrsken Accelerator, Norrsken Launcher and Norrsken Africa Seed Fund. 

Norrsken was founded by Niklas Adalberth, co-founder of payment services unicorn Klarna. 

Read more from the source: https://latitude59.ee/the-largest-nordic-hub-for-tech-and-creativity-is-being-established-in-tallinn/

Throughout the summer and fall of 2025, The MICHELIN Guide announced nominees for the very first hotel awards. Chosen by its Inspectors, the nominees for each award — Architecture & Design, Wellness, Local Gateway, and Opening of the Year — represent the very best across four aspects of hospitality. On Oct. 8, 2025, at an event attended by hoteliers across the world in Paris where the latest hotel Keys were revealed, the winners of each inaugural award were finally announced. 

MICHELIN Opening of the Year Award: The Burman Hotel — Tallinn, Estonia

MICHELIN Architecture & Design Award: Atlantis the Royal — Dubai, UAE

MICHELIN Wellness Award: Bürgenstock Resort — Bürgenstock, Switzerland

MICHELIN Local Gateway Award: La Fiermontina Ocean — Larache, Morocco

Read more from the source: https://guide.michelin.com/en/article/travel/michelin-hotel-special-category-awards-2025

A consortium led by BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) and the newly formed Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), which counts Nvidia, Microsoft and xAI among its strategic participants — has agreed to acquire Aligned Data Centers at an enterprise value of roughly $40 billion. The sellers are Macquarie Asset Management and its co-investment partners.  

The consortium plans to initially invest $30 billion in equity, with potential to scale up to $100 billion including debt, to support AI infrastructure growth.

The debt market must advance with financing commitments, while power announcements such as PPAs, grid-upgrade partnerships, and on-site generation projects will define near-term growth trajectories. 

Read more from the sources: https://www.datacenterfrontier.com/hyperscale/article/55323360/blackrock-led-consortium-to-acquire-aligned-data-centers-in-40-billion-ai-infrastructure-deal and https://dallasinnovates.com/north-texas-aligned-data-centers-to-be-acquired-for-40-billion-by-blackrock-nvidia-xai-microsoft-and-others/

Goldman Sachs has acquired venture capital firm Industry Ventures for nearly $1bn in a boost to its asset management unit.

The Wall Street investment bank, which has been bolstering its wealth and asset management business in recent years, has acquired the San Francisco-based firm, which has around $7bn in assets under management, it said in a statement.

Read more from the source: https://www.penews.com/articles/goldman-sachs-buys-industry-ventures-in-965m-deal-3d99dcdd

· One new pan-European legal entity

· One central EU-level registry

· Standardized investment documents

· Standardized EU-wide stock options

· Local taxes & employment

· For every founder

The EU–INC is a proposed pan-European company structure. It aims to streamline incorporation, management processes, and fundraising for innovative businesses across Europe.

Techcrunch: "Founders and VCs back a Pan-European C corp, but an ‘EU–INC’ has a rocky road ahead"

CNBC: "Stripe, Wise founders want a ‘tech renaissance’ in Europe to help region rival Silicon Valley"

Euractive: "Tech startups urge Commission for pan-European legal status to boost growth"

Sifted: "DeepL, Personio, Index, Seedcamp call for sweeping reform to pan-European business laws"

Read more from the source: https://www.eu-inc.org/

Warburg Pincus is set to acquire PSI Software, a German provider of software solutions for power and gas transmission grids and industrial automation, in a deal valuing the company at over €700m.

Warburg Pincus has already secured agreements covering approximately 28.5% of PSI’s equity from anchor shareholders, with one key investor set to partially reinvest alongside the firm. PSI’s largest shareholder, Norman Rentrop, holds a 23% stake, while German utility E.ON owns around 18% and will remain a strategic partner post-acquisition. 

Read more from the source: https://www.privateequitywire.co.uk/warburg-pincus-to-acquire-german-software-firm-psi-for-over-e700m/

US VC secondary transactions totaled $61.1 billion from June 2024 to June 2025, surpassing IPO exit value of $58.8 billion over the same period, according to PitchBook data. 

Spates of high-profile tender offers in 2025 have bumped up secondary transaction volumes. Entrenched and growing startups like Ramp have begun routinely offering employees, and some investors, liquidity avenues via tender offers. 

Special purpose vehicles have also contributed. Once-niche secondary SPVs jumped 545% in count over the last two years, while total value raised grew 1,000% over the same period.

Read more from the source: https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/us-vc-secondaries-sales-leapfrog-ipo-exit-value 

Private equity giant Hellman & Friedman has scored one of Europe's biggest liquidity events of the year after portfolio company Verisure, a Swiss-based provider of monitored alarm systems, was valued at €13.7bn in its highly anticipated Stockholm IPO. 

Originally part of Sweden’s Securitas, Verisure was spun off in 2006 as Securitas Direct before being acquired by Hellman & Friedman. Under private equity ownership, the business expanded aggressively across Europe and Latin America, capitalising on rising demand for connected home and business security services.

The flotation provides Hellman & Friedman with a partial liquidity event while maintaining a strategic position in Verisure. 

Read more from the source: https://www.privateequitywire.co.uk/hellman-friedman-backed-verisure-hits-16bn-valuation-in-stockholm-ipo/

As banks continue their push into private markets, a landmark partnership struck by Deutsche Bank last month could be the first of many.

Deutsche’s wealthy clients will be able to invest in unlisted assets as part of a fund launched with in-house asset management arm DWS.

Read more from the source: https://www.penews.com/articles/why-deutsche-banks-door-is-open-to-more-private-markets-partners-69e1a9c7

Apollo Global Management has launched a dedicated sports investing platform, Apollo Sports Capital, appointing Al Tylis as chief executive officer to lead the firm’s push into the rapidly expanding sports finance sector, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The strategy will target credit and hybrid investment opportunities across sports franchises, venues, and events, leveraging structured lending and minority or majority stakes in teams. Sam Porter joins as chief strategy officer, while Apollo partners Rob Givone and Lee Solomon will serve as co-portfolio managers.

Read more from the source: https://www.privateequitywire.co.uk/apollo-launches-5bn-sports-investing-platform/ 

The Swiss bank has upped its investment banking ambitions and European M&A work remains key despite a US push. 

European dealmaking is set to bounce back in the second half after lagging other key investment banking markets in 2025, according to UBS’s head of M&A in the region. 

Read more from the source: https://www.penews.com/articles/ubs-m-a-boss-beck-european-deals-will-catch-up-with-us-and-asia-7ea74393

OpenAI said Thursday that it plans to launch Stargate Norway, its first AI data center in Europe, in partnership with British AI cloud infrastructure provider Nscale and Norwegian energy infrastructure firm Aker. 

The announcement comes as Europe races to achieve AI sovereignty and invest in data centers and compute power. Earlier this week, the bloc unveiled details of its multibillion-dollar investment into AI infrastructure, including €10 billion ($11.8 billion) to set up 13 AI factories and €20 billion as an initial investment in the factories. Data sovereignty is key to that mission, due to the sensitive nature of business and government data. 

Read more from the source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/31/openai-to-launch-ai-data-center-in-norway-its-first-in-europe/

Regina Donato Dahlström, managing director for the Nordics at Equinix, said: “There is no doubt AI is front of mind for businesses across Europe; and the Nordics is a great place to host AI infrastructure. With its sustainable energy policies, free cooling and reliable power grid, Finland is a standout choice for hosting this new capacity. Combining Groq’s cutting-edge technology with Equinix’s global infrastructure and vendor-neutral connectivity solutions enables efficient AI inference at scale. Our customers at Equinix will be able to securely tap into GroqCloud and lead on innovation within their enterprise.” 

Read more from the source: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20250714/ai-infrastructure/groq-data-center