TheChek News Flow

Ipsos survey for the FT finds high levels of volatility in electorate ahead of July 4 ballot

The Conservatives have lost up to a third of voters who planned to back the party just four months ago, according to an Ipsos poll for the Financial Times that points to high levels of volatility ahead of the UK election on July 4.

The survey, conducted on the same cohort of almost 16,000 voters at the end of January and the start of June, found that 32 per cent of people who had said initially they would vote Conservative have since changed their minds.

Rightwing party Reform UK has attracted 8 per cent of the Tory voters polled, 6 per cent switched to Labour, while 7 per cent said they were now undecided and 9 per cent said they were less likely to vote at all.

Despite the high rate of switching, the poll showed little change in the overall support for each of the main political parties, with the Tories’ share of those polled falling from 14 to 13 per cent and Labour increasing its share over the period from 26 to 27 per cent.

While the Conservatives lost voters to Labour and Reform, they also gained backers among those who had previously said they were undecided. This group has commonly turned out for the Conservatives in recent elections.

Labour — which opinion polls suggest is likely to sweep to power on July 4 — also experienced high levels of turnover, losing a quarter of people who previously said they were planning to vote for the party, of which 3 per cent said they were now undecided and 9 per cent less likely to vote.

The party lost 4 per cent of its voters to the Lib Dems, some of which are likely to be tactical switchers trying to oust Tory candidates, but Labour gained 16 per cent of those who had previously been planning to vote Lib Dem.

Rob Ford, professor of political science at Manchester university, said the Ipsos findings demonstrated that “surface stability has a lot of churn underneath it”.

“We’re likely to see a lot more churn than in previous elections because partisanship is lower than we’ve seen in the past and fragmentation between different parties is higher,” Ford said.

The proportion of British voters who switch their preferred party between general elections has shifted from about 13 per cent in 1960 to closer to 60 per cent today, according to research from Oxford and Manchester universities.

Nearly half of those who switched from Labour to the Lib Dems said they were switching to try to keep another party out. There are many seats — particularly in the south and south-west of England — that have never returned a Labour MP and where the battle is viewed as a two-horse race between the Tories and Lib Dems.

Reform was the only party to significantly increase its total vote share in the longitudinal survey, from 3 to 7 per cent. Reform founder Nigel Farage seized the party leadership on June 3, near the end of the second data-collection period of May 29 to June 5, meaning that the data will not fully reflect the impact of his move.

Of those voters who switched from the Conservatives to Reform, 80 per cent said they were unhappy with Rishi Sunak’s performance as prime minister, while about three-quarters said they were influenced by policy towards asylum seekers.

“The data helps us understand the importance to Conservative-to-Reform switchers of dissatisfaction with the government and prime minister,” said Gideon Skinner, head of politics at Ipsos.

A little over a decade ago, the luxury industry was gripped by the “handbag war” between LVMH and Hermès when Bernard Arnault’s group tried to seize control of the maker of the prized Birkin handbags and was eventually forced to give up. Now a watch war could be afoot.

The two luxury powerhouses are bidding for Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier, the Parmigiani watch brand and other suppliers part of the watchmaking hub put up for sale several months ago by their owner, the Sandoz Family Foundation, industry sources say. Cartier owner Richemont has also expressed interest, they say, but the Swiss group is much less motivated than LVMH and Hermès because it has sufficient production capacity and strong ties with suppliers.

Earlier this month, executives from LVMH, Hermès and Richemont met with the management of the businesses put up for sale, one by one, industry sources say. “Initial bids are expected to be made this month and hopefully a deal will be announced before the end of the summer,” one person with knowledge of the sale process said. Deloitte is advising the Sandoz Foundation. LVMH and Hermès declined to comment. Richemont could not be reached for comment.

For many weeks, Hermès appeared to be the best positioned since it already owned 25 percent of Vaucher, a highly regarded provider of watch movements. Hermès is said to have ploughed more than €120 million into the company since it became a shareholder in 2006. The French luxury company has right of first refusal to buy the shares it does not already own in Vaucher.

Publicly, Hermès has never denied its interest in buying the whole company. In an interview with Swiss daily Le Temps in April, Guillaume de Seynes, a member of the Hermès family who has been in charge of the group’s investments in watchmaking since the beginning, said: “I can confirm that we are not uninterested with what will happen to Vaucher.” Vaucher supplies all the mechanical movements of Hermès’ watches, de Seynes told the newspaper. For him, letting go of Vaucher is not an option. Hermès has spent a lot of time and money trying to keep this company financially afloat and building a relationship with it. Losing ties with Vaucher would be unthinkable for de Seynes. It’s his battle.

Vaucher is vital because it gives Hermès legitimacy in watchmaking and plays an important part in the narrative. If LVMH were to win control, Hermès would find itself in a difficult position. It’s not clear how the two would work together. While Vaucher is part of the Sandoz Foundation, the French luxury company can say that its movements are made in-house. If LVMH took charge, it may not allow the company to say they are made in-house and even worse, it may not agree to supply Hermès with movements.

There is still quite a lot of bad blood between the two groups. Memories of the acrimonious 2010-2014 “handbag war” are still fresh. Hermès fought tooth and nail to rebuff LVMH’s attempt to gobble up the luxury company. “I think Hermès is going to do all that it can to prevent LVMH from taking control of Vaucher,” the executive of one major watch brand told Miss Tweed on condition of anonymity.

If LVMH succeeded in buying the whole watchmaking hub of the Sandoz Foundation, Hermès could take the group to court on the basis that its right of first refusal was not honored, some industry sources say. The two groups would cross swords again. That would not be good news for investors as it would create an unwelcome distraction for both groups’ management at a time when the industry is facing an unprecedented downturn and everyone needs to be on deck to navigate the storm as best as they can.

Hermès is not the only one concerned about LVMH’s interest in Vaucher. Audemars Piguet and Richard Mille are also worried. LVMH calling the shots at Vaucher is not a particularly palatable option for them either since they are major customers of the movement provider.

Hence, Audemars Piguet and Richard Mille could likely join the fray against LVMH. Audemars Piguet owns a minority stake in Richard Mille, which means that their interests are aligned.

Part of the Sandoz watchmaking hub is Atokalpa, a provider of key elements such as balance wheels and springs, and its sister company Elwin, which supplies hardware for mechanical movements. Patek Philippe and Chopard are shareholders in both companies.

“It’s pretty clear to me that Atokalpa is strategic also for Patek Philippe and Chopard,” another senior watch executive said. “They will not want to let LVMH get control of it.”

Hence, a consortium opposing LVMH’s bid to buy the whole watchmaking hub of the Sandoz Foundation is forming. Watchmakers are more relaxed working with Hermès than with LVMH, Swiss watch industry sources say. The latter group’s financial resources are gigantic. Bernard Arnault’s philosophy is that the end justifies the means. It’s nearly impossible to counter LVMH’s might and plans.

Unlike LVMH, Hermès is not on the prowl to expand its empire. The French luxury company is working on securing its supply chain and continuing to build its watch business. Rival big brands feel more comfortable with that strategy than with LVMH’s ambitions.

In the past few years, Hermès has been introducing more high-end pieces costing more than €12,000, paying great attention to design. “I think Hermès really defined its soul in watchmaking,” the CEO of one medium-sized Swiss watch brand told Miss Tweed. “They have found their place in the watchmaking industry and created very nice products.”

De Seynes told Le Temps that the average price of its watches had risen from €3,000 to €10,000 in the past five to six years. At the Watches & Wonders trade fair last April, Hermès presented a new genderless model called the Hermès Cut, with a new movement designed specifically for it, as well as a triple-axis tourbillon coupled with a minute repeater called Arceau Duc Attelé costing €400,000.

Hermès is a rising star in the Swiss watch industry. Last year, it made €611 million in watch sales, up 23 percent at constant exchange rates, higher than the brand’s overall sales growth of 21 percent. In the first quarter, watch sales were up 4 percent – a feat in a declining market. Hermès makes around 75,000 watches a year. A significant proportion are still equipped with quartz movements and they cost between €2,000 and €3,000. Its timepieces are sold in its more than 300 stores and at some 100 wholesalers, the brand says.

Hermès has been trying to buy Vaucher Manufacture for years. But now it has to counter competition from LVMH, which is also keen to invest in movement providers. The French group harbors great ambitions in watchmaking. Several industry sources said LVMH was on the lookout for more suppliers than just Vaucher.

“We see a lot of LVMH people in Switzerland attending fairs, bonding with key players and their M&A teams are scouting for acquisition opportunities,” the head of one small independent brand told Miss Tweed. “They are in ‘attack’ mode.”

Industry sources said LVMH offered €4 billion for Swatch Group’s Breguet a few years ago but the Hayek family would not let go of it. LVMH and Swatch Group never commented on this fact.

Frédéric Arnault, CEO of LVMH’s watchmaking division and third son of the group’s chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault, is looking for ways to increase production and the quality of movements, particularly that of TAG Heuer. LVMH also owns Zenith and Hublot which, like TAG, have their own in-house movement providers.

Carole Forestier-Kasapi, in charge of movement development at TAG Heuer, told Le Temps in May that Vaucher was the “best provider” of movements with complications – additional functions than the time. At Watches & Wonders, TAG Heuer presented a new MonacoSplit-Seconds Chronograph supplied by Vaucher. Some industry experts argue that this watch was more a marketing coup than a timepiece aimed to be produced in large quantities. Priced at 165,000 Swiss francs, every item will be numbered, the brand said at the time of its presentation.

TAG Heuer’s spokeswoman did not reply to a request to comment on that point. Jean Arnault, Bernard Arnault’s fourth and youngest son, is in charge of watches for Louis Vuitton and relaunching the brands Gérald Genta and Daniel Roth, using the group’s plant La Fabrique du Temps. Jean and Frédéric Arnault may be keen to grow further Parmigiani, which is also for sale and part of the Sandoz Foundation watchmaking hub.

Parmigiani is not a big player in the industry. Last year, it is estimated to have generated just over 65 million Swiss francs in revenue in 2023 – up from 26 million Swiss francs in 2019 – and aiming for further steady growth this year. The watchmaker is still burning a little cash but at least it is breaking even, several sources said.

Under the leadership of Guido Terreni since early 2021, Parmigiani has enjoyed a revival. The brand has narrowed its focus on its best-selling model, the Tonda PF, which has a minimalist and recognizable integrated design. Steel models start at around 20,000 Swiss francs.

Parmigiani has benefited from a shortage of popular models such as AP’s Royal Oak and Patek Philippe’s Nautilus which cost about the same and have similar designs. Consumers bought a Parmigiani Tonda PF instead, watch retailers say. Parmigiani is distributed mainly by third-party retailers. It has not invested in its own network of boutiques.

One element complicating the sale of the Parmigiani brand is the fact that it does not own the intellectual property (IP) of its movements. Those belong to Vaucher Manufacture. This means that whoever buys Parmigiani, is buying a brand without the IP of its movements. Hence, if LVMH wanted to invest in Parmigiani, it would not make sense for it not to buy Vaucher.

Hermès, on the other hand, may not be that interested in Parmigiani since its strategy is to focus on growing its own watch business. However, both Hermès and LVMH have the means to write big cheques. At the end of 2023, Hermès was sitting on a net cash pile of more than €10 billion while LVMH had €7.7 billion. Comparatively, Richemont had a net cash position of €7.4 billion as of March 31.

In the course of the past decade, most major watch brands have been investing in the development of their own movements and production capacity. Having your own movement makes your timepiece more unique and allows you to charge more for it. Watchmaking is very capital-intensive. It requires a lot of money and time to develop a movement, often several years.

Also part of the Sandoz Foundation’s watch producing hub is Quadrance & Habillage, a specialist maker of watch dials with expertise in guilloche and engraving. The watch suppliers work for many of the world’s top watch brands. Together with Vaucher Manufacture and the other suppliers part of the hub, they employ more than 500 people, spread between Alle in the canton of Jura, La Chaux-de-Fonds and the Vallée de Joux, three of Switzerland’s most important watchmaking clusters.

The Foundation already tried to find a buyer for its watchmaking hub several times, including once three years ago, but discussions failed to produce a deal. The Foundation is understood to have lost more than 1 billion Swiss francs since it started investing in Parmigiani and its various suppliers 30 years ago. The descendants of the family behind the Foundation are keen to get as much back as possible.

Larry Ellison’s ‘extreme sailing’ returns to New York as it plots expansion

Oracle co-founder’s professional sailing league wants to become the global Formula 1 of water sports

Billionaire Larry Ellison’s SailGP predicts it will break even as early as next year as it steps up a global expansion aimed at establishing the professional sailing league as the Formula 1 of the water.

The competition that the Oracle co-founder started in 2019 returned to New York’s harbour for its second race in the city on Saturday. Amid light winds, SailGP’s 10-boat New York harbour race was forced to cancel its third and final heat of the day. Racing resumes on Sunday afternoon.

The league’s 50ft catamarans are designed to lift out of the water — or foil — which reduces drag and allows the sailboats to accelerate to almost 100km. 

These speeds — combined with an occasional capsize — give the event the look of a Formula 1 auto race, an appeal the league hopes will broaden its reach beyond sailing aficionados. 

On Friday, SailGP announced that Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund and one of the league’s biggest sponsors, will launch a Brazilian team that will compete alongside nine other boats in the league’s fifth season. The deal underscores the league’s effort to grow into profitability as soon as next year, according to officials. 

“We have taken the view that we want to keep pushing the value of the league by that growth,” said Andrew Thompson, SailGP’s managing director. “We are forecasted to break even, I would say, likely at the end of next season if not season six,” he said. “We got there sooner than anticipated, which is great.”

“Some host venues pay a large sum as well as sponsorship directly for that race. Others are really sponsorship-driven,” he said. “We are getting to the stage where many of our events are now profitable, but there are a significant portion of them that aren’t.”

Media revenue “is not a significant sum today”, Thompson said. SailGP races are broadcast on CBS and online.

Ellison, a longtime funder of the America’s Cup sailing race and chair at Oracle, remains a big backer of the league. His software company has given SailGP $2.3mn in exchange for sponsorship, according to a regulatory filing last year.

In New York, SailGP is also benefiting from Wall Street cash, for example, from Ken Griffin’s financial firm Citadel, which sponsored waterside lounges for employees. Some VIPs enjoyed a ride in chaser boats alongside the catamarans as the races were going on.

SailGP is one of nearly a dozen emerging sports leagues that is drawing private equity investments, according to a report this month from JPMorgan. Others include drone racing, lacrosse, pickleball and US women’s basketball.

“There’s a risk that rising valuations in emerging sports result from investors having been priced out of major sports leagues whose valuations are soaring,” JPMorgan said.

In November, billionaire investor Marc Lasry led the acquisition of the US SailGP team. Other teams are still owned by SailGP, but Thompson said: “I would expect by the end of season five that none of the teams will be owned by SailGP and they will all be in third-party hands.”

Ryan McKillen, an investor in the US SailGP team and a former founding engineer at Uber, said in an interview that traditional sailing can be “incredibly boring to watch”.

But with the speed of SailGP, “we have an extreme sport”, he said. “It is not sailing any more.”

China agrees to talks with EU over EV tariffs

German minister Robert Habeck welcomes the move during visit to Beijing to soothe tensions

China has agreed to enter talks with the EU over its decision to impose higher tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles, during a visit to Beijing by Germany’s vice-chancellor aimed at soothing tensions.

Robert Habeck, minister for economic affairs and climate action, welcomed the move by China to enter discussions with Brussels on EU tariffs but said it was “a first step and many more will be necessary”.

His comments came after China’s ministry of commerce said Beijing and Brussels had agreed to launch consultations on an anti-subsidy investigation launched by the EU last year. The probe led to a decision this month to increase tariffs on Chinese EVs to as high as 48 per cent.

The announcement followed a video conference between China’s minister of commerce Wang Wentao and EU executive vice-president and trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.

Germany was critical of the EU’s decision to increase tariffs on imports of Chinese EVs and Habeck is the first senior European politician to visit the country since the extra duties were announced.

The Chinese market is crucially important for Germany’s vast carmaking industry, making Berlin particularly vulnerable to any retaliatory measures by Beijing, which has already announced its own anti-dumping investigation into EU pork products.

While he struck a conciliatory tone on tariffs, which are yet to be finalised, Habeck was critical of China’s growing exports to Russia and cited Germany’s efforts to stop exports of “dual-use” goods with potential military applications.

“I looked at the trade figures and Chinese trade with Russia increased more than 40 per cent last year,” he said. “Of course energy is a high part [of] it, but something like half of it is related to dual-use goods.”

“These are technically goods that can be used on the battlefield and this has to stop,” he said.

China is one of Germany’s largest trading partners and Berlin has sought to carefully navigate rising tensions between Beijing and Washington that increased sharply following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Habeck also visited Beijing where he met Wang Wentao and Zheng Shenjie, head of the National Development and Reform Commission. He said they spoke about energy and climate issues as well as human rights with Chinese officials as part of “intense discussions”. An anticipated meeting with Premier Li Qiang did not materialise.

On Sunday, the German vice-chancellor said China should find a safe alternative to coal after the country ramped up production of the carbon-intensive fuel source. “Without China it would not be possible to meet the climate targets globally,” he said during a visit to Hangzhou, according to a Reuters report.

President Joe Biden imposed tariffs of 100 per cent on Chinese electric vehicles this year, higher than the EU, though the US imports much smaller volumes.

Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, met President Xi Jinping in April and encouraged China’s president to pressure Russia to end its campaign in Ukraine. Scholz has also petitioned Li for greater market access for German companies in the mainland.

Xi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have trumpeted their close relationship and sworn to increase trade. Russia became China’s fifth-biggest single-country trading partner last year, up from ninth in 2020, as trade reached $240bn. Chinese exports to Russia rose 46.9 per cent in 2023 year on year, according to official data.

Environmentalists and sceptical locals threaten key element of US plans for green energy

One of the Biden administration’s flagship projects to derive energy from hydrogen faces an uncertain future due to strong community opposition, underscoring the difficulty in rolling out a technology once hailed as key to the green transition.

The Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2), spanning the prolific Marcellus shale basin in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, is designed to produce hydrogen using primarily gas and carbon capture by mid-2030. But the $6bn project, which includes fossil fuel companies EQT, CNX and Marathon Petroleum as developers, faces opposition from local communities and green groups over its environmental footprint and doubts over its commercial viability.

Last month more than 50 local environmental groups urged the Department of Energy in a letter to suspend negotiations on ARCH2 until more clarity was provided on the project.

“This is just the latest reinvention of the [oil and gas] industry in an attempt to stay relevant and reposition themselves as a solution to a problem that they created, the climate crisis,” said Tom Torres, hydrogen campaign co-ordinator for the Ohio River Valley Institute, and one of the letter’s signatories.

Clean hydrogen has been touted for its potential to green hard-to-abate sectors such as shipping and cement production. America’s abundant cheap gas resources have made it an attractive destination for projects such as ARCH2, which use gas and carbon capture, also known as blue hydrogen.

But the rollout of blue hydrogen is controversial because it generates emissions and relies on carbon capture technology, which has yet to be proven cost-efficient at scale. A study by researchers at Stanford and Cornell found that the emissions footprint of blue hydrogen was 20 per cent greater than burning gas or coal for heat.

Green groups claim blue hydrogen projects hand the fossil fuel industry a lifeline and funds should instead be directed towards green hydrogen, which is produced using renewables.

Kat Finneran, a doctoral student in geography from Findlay, Ohio, the headquarters of Marathon Petroleum, warned the hydrogen hub would “prolong fracking operations for decades”. 

“It doesn’t just prolong them, it validates and greenwashes them,” said Finneran, who also testified in a Department of Energy listening session in March with nearly 200 participants.

By 2030, the US is expected to become the world’s largest clean hydrogen producer, with blue hydrogen making up more than three-quarters of production, according to consultancy BloombergNEF. Green hydrogen, generated using renewable electricity, will make up the remaining fifth.

Shawn Bennett, project leader for ARCH2 and former deputy assistant secretary for oil and gas under the Trump administration, has defended the hub’s environmental credentials and commercial viability.

He said the hub would not “cause new [gas] wells to be spudded” and attributed local pushback to a “misunderstanding” about the project’s stage of development. ARCH2 was in negotiations with the DOE and had not finalised sites for its hydrogen facilities to begin serious community engagement, said Bennett.

“In lieu of funding it’s very difficult . . . to start making promises and commitments to communities,” said Bennett, who testified at a Pennsylvania house hearing on June 17 on hydrogen hubs, where environmental groups and lawmakers raised concerns over blue hydrogen’s carbon footprint. 

A Department of Energy spokesperson said that clean hydrogen was “essential” to a strong green energy economy and that hydrogen hubs “will help unlock the full potential of this versatile fuel”. 

The Biden administration has set a goal of producing 10mn metric tonnes of clean hydrogen annually by 2030, up from virtually zero today and the same size as the “dirty” hydrogen industry, which is derived from fossil fuels and produces a significant amount of emissions

Community pushback has plagued other hydrogen projects, with France-based CMG Cleantech moving its $113mn renewable technology park in Osceola County, Florida to another site after locals opposed its green hydrogen plans. The move delayed the project by 8 months.

Analysts say hydrogen projects face a struggle to secure funding and customers, with BNEF estimating that only 6 per cent of US projects have secured binding supply agreements. 

“There’s a real lack of trust that there will be a real hydrogen market with competitive prices,” said Elina Teplinsky, partner at Pillsbury Law. “A lot of companies are waiting on the sidelines before they make any serious investment.”

The lack of final rules for the Inflation Reduction Act’s controversial clean hydrogen production tax credit has also hampered the sector’s rollout.

In February, all seven hydrogen hubs penned a letter to Treasury warning that “investments and jobs will not fully materialise” unless the rules are “significantly revised”.

The metaverse is not getting funded.

That was the unsurprising finding from our latest data dive regarding investment in startups innovating around the metaverse, virtual reality and augmented reality.

The space, which was significantly buzzier a few years ago, has apparently lost its cachet with VCs. Dwindling investment comes on the heels of disappointing adoption for the gear and leading metaverse platforms.

Even Apple’s U.S. introduction earlier this year of the Vision Pro headset, marketed as a “spatial computing” device, didn’t produce a notable turn in sentiment. Demand for the $3,500 device is reportedly cooling, with Apple said to have cut its shipment forecast.

Back in startupland, the investment climate seems downright chilly. Per Crunchbase data, roughly $464 million this year has gone into seed- through growth-stage funding rounds for companies tied to AR, VR and the metaverse. That puts 2024 on track for the lowest funding total in years.

Most of the startups that raised the biggest financings during the peak funding of 2021 have not closed new rounds since then. This includes headset maker Magic Leap and augmented reality game developer Niantic.

This year, while activity is muted, some sizable financings are still getting done.

So far in 2024, the largest AR-related round went to Rokid, a maker of augmented reality glasses that raised $70 million in a January financing. Redwood City, California-based Rokid primarily markets its products for workplace and industrial use cases, but also has a consumer offering.

Another good-sized financing went to Beijing-based Xreal, a maker of mixed-reality glasses that raised $60 million in a January round at a value of $1 billion. The company pitches itself as a lower-cost competitor to Meta’s Quest and Apple’s Vision Pro.

Fading buzzwords

In addition to lackluster uptake for virtual- and mixed-reality gear and platforms, another factor behind seemingly slower funding tallies may be that the buzzwords themselves have fallen out of favor.

A few years ago, describing oneself as a metaverse company might have helped spike interest from venture investors. Today that’s no longer the case. Startups prefer, for example, to emphasize their artificial intelligence focus. Even Apple studiously avoided using the term metaverse in promoting Vision Pro, opting instead to talk up the device’s spatial computing capability.

Should adoption of virtual and mixed reality devices accelerate, venture investors will likely give the space renewed attention — and bigger checks. But perhaps by then, the ambitious startups will be using different buzzwords, like AI-enabled video simulations or spatial computing environments.

The top five raises this week came from sectors that have seen good heat recently. Biotech/healthcare and cybersecurity dominated the run of big rounds this week, with a few AI startups also seeing good-sized checks. After a few slow weeks, megadeals seem to be back, as four companies locked up nine-figure rounds.

1. Marea Therapeutics, $190M, biotech: This big biotech round is actually the combination of two rounds. Marea Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing medicines for cardiometabolic diseases, launched with $190 million in a combined Series A and B financing. The Series A round was led by Third Rock Ventures — where the startup was incubated — and the Series B round was co-led by Forbion Capital Partners, Perceptive Advisors, Sofinnova Investments and VenBio Partners. The company didn’t split out the rounds, so we record it as one and it tops the list this week.

2. Huntress, $150M, cybersecurity: Maryland-based Huntress became the newest cybersecurity unicorn after it raised a $150 million Series D at a $1.5 billion-plus valuation. The new round was led by Kleiner Perkins, Meritech Capital Partners and existing investor Sapphire Ventures. The startup focuses on security services for small business to small enterprise customers — an often overlooked sector in cyber as many companies chase Fortune 500 companies. Huntress currently is realizing more than 70% year-to-year revenue growth for the past two years as it continues to “approach $100 million in annual recurring revenue.” Founded in 2015, Huntress has raised nearly $310 million, per Crunchbase.

3. Talkiatry, $130M, healthcare: Mental health is a growing concern. Just 31% of adults believe their mental health is “excellent,” a 20 percentage point drop from 2004. New York-based psychiatric care startup Talkiatry locked up a $130 million raise — a mix of equity and debt financing — led by Andreessen Horowitz to try to improve those numbers. The startup offers a national mental health practice that provides in-network psychiatry and therapy, trying to help the 60% of adults in the U.S. with a diagnosable mental illness who go untreated every year. Founded in 2019, Talkiatry has raised $245 million, per the company.

4. Semperis, $125M, cybersecurity: Huntress’ big round wasn’t the only one in security this week. Hoboken, New Jersey-based Semperis secured $125 million in growth financing — a mix of equity and debt — from J. P. Morgan and Hercules Capital. The new round reportedly values the company at $1 billion. Semperis provides a variety of security services, including protection for the Microsoft directory service. Founded in 2014, the company has raised nearly $500 million, per Crunchbase.

5. Elion Therapeutics, $81M, biotech: More than 150 million people suffer from serious fungal infections around the world, resulting in approximately 1.7 million deaths annually. A New York-based biotech raised big this week to try to lower those stats even as such infections have become more virulent. Elion Therapeutics, which focuses on the treatment of life-threatening invasive fungal infections, raised an $81 million Series B led by Deerfield Management and the AMR Action Fund. This is the company’s first announced round, per Crunchbase.

6. CesiumAstro, $65M, space: Austin, Texas-based CesiumAstro, a developer of space communications technology, closed a $65 million Series B+ round led by Trousdale Ventures. Founded in 2017, the company has raised more than $185 million, per Crunchbase.

7. Genspark AI, $60M, artificial intelligence: Palo Alto, California-based Genspark AI, an artificial intelligence search startup, raised $60 million led by Lanchi Ventures at a reported $260 million post-money valuation.

8. (tied) Daydream, $50M, ecommerce: New York-based Daydream, an AI-powered search platform for the retail industry, launched with a $50 million seed round co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Index Ventures.

8. (tied) Iambic Therapeutics, $50M, biotech: San Diego-based Iambic Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology startup developing therapeutics using an AI-driven discovery platform, closed a $50 million Series B extension led by new investors Mubadala Capital and Exor Ventures. Founded in 2019, the company has raised nearly $233 million, per Crunchbase.

8. (tied) You.com, $50M, artificial intelligence: Palo Alto, California-based You.com, an AI-enhanced search engine developer, reportedly is finishing up raising a $50 million Series B. Investors were not named. Founded in 2020, the company has raised $95 million, per Crunchbase.