Good morning and TGIF! As we head toward a long weekend, the newsflow may slow, but we've got the goods for you today. 

First off, I report on what may be the final round in the StraightPath Venture Partners case, with prison time doled out to three firm founders. And some hefty financial penalties went along with the sentencing. But appeals may be in the works, so stay tuned.

Next, WSJ Pro's Alicia McElhaney details the financial woes bedeviling a Fortress project in Florida. Intercity passenger railroad Brightline might be headed to a default after amassing $5.5 billion in debt. It would be one of the biggest holes punched in the muni market ever, if no lifelines are extended.

Before you go, please note we will not publish a newsletter Monday in observance of the Memorial Day holiday. Look for us to return to your inbox Tuesday and have a great weekend!

Now onto the news...

A federal judge has handed down lengthy prison sentences to the three co-founders of StraightPath Venture Partners, a self-described boutique private-equity firm that specialized in pre-IPO company investments, WSJ Pro's Ted Bunker reports. The three individuals, Brian Martinsen, Michael Castillero and Francine Lanaia, were convicted last year of fraud and conspiracy. Judge Jesse Furman on Wednesday sentenced Castillero to 11 years in prison, while giving Martinsen 10 years and Lanaia eight years. Judge Furman also issued each of the defendants forfeiture orders ranging from about $24.3 million to $25.4 million, according to the Justice Department. They also face restitution orders totaling $115 million.

Fortress Investment Group's Brightline intercity railroad in Florida has amassed $5.5 billion in debt to get its lines up and running, mostly through tax-exempt municipal bonds. But the company has since struggled with tepid ridership growth and personal-injury lawsuits tied to accidental deaths on its tracks, Alicia McElhaney reports for WSJ Pro. Now investors who poured billions into the project are confronting a potentially steep financial hit as the company teeters on the verge of one of the largest municipal-market defaults in U.S. history. Fortress and Brightline are in restructuring talks and seeking new capital, warning of potential failure without a financial lifeline.

Brookfield Corp. participated in a $700 million growth investment in Hark, an artificial intelligence technology developer focused on personal interactions with digital systems and hardware. The round valued the company at about $6 billion and was led by Parkway Venture Capital.

General Atlantic in New York led a $150 million growth investment in wealth manager Farther Finance Advisors, joined by existing backers of the business. San Francisco-based Farther has developed technology to assist financial advisers and their clients.

An artificial intelligence technology business recently set up by Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and AI developer Anthropic is acquiring venture-backed software startup Fractional AI to serve as the operational core of the new organization, Elias Schisgall reports for Dow Jones Newswires. Backers of the new organization, described as an AI-native enterprise services company, also include Goldman Sachs, General Atlantic, Leonard Green & Partners, Apollo Global Management, GIC and Sequoia Capital. The objective of the new company is to infuse Anthropic's AI inference engine Claude into business operations in ways that create lasting value.

Buyout firm KKR & Co. is backing beauty products marketplace provider Fresha.com SV with an $80 million growth investment in a deal that values the company at more than $1 billion. The London-based company works with more than 130,000 beauty and wellness businesses globally.

Tikehau Capital in Paris is backing real estate consulting and management company Ryze, which is a portfolio company of AnaCap Financial Partners in London. Tikehau is expected to help the company expand from its main Italian market into France, Spain and Portugal.

Accel-KKR, a private-equity firm focused on the software industry, made a growth investment in UpKeep. The Los Angeles-based company provides systems that help businesses manage the maintenance of their assets. The investment will support the expansion of UpKeep’s artificial intelligence-powered offerings.

HarbourView Equity Partners has acquired the compositions and recordings for the full catalog of works released prior to 2024 from British-Jamaican artist Stefflon Don.

Trinity Hunt Partners is investing in Landscape Endeavors and forming Elevation Landscape Group with the business.

Our add-on deal interactive tool allows you to sort and analyze volumes of add-on deal data compiled by WSJ Pro. View more.

Buyout firm KKR & Co. could be in line for a big return on its roughly $1.8 billion take-private of manufacturer Circor International in 2023 as the firm is selling the aerospace division to strategic buyer Parker-Hannifin for $2.55 billion, Lauren Thomas reports for the Journal. Burlington, Mass.-based Circor specializes in making pumps and valves for the industrial, aerospace and defense industries. The unit being sold supplies products used in commercial and military aircraft as well as missile systems. KKR invested in Circor through its 13th North America fund.

The maker of Oura fitness rings, which is backed by Atreides Capital, Iconiq Capital and others, has filed confidentially for an initial public offering, Josh Beckerman reports for the Journal. The eponymous company didn't say how many shares it plans to sell or provide other details. Iconiq first backed the business through a more than $900 million investment round in October that valued the company at about $11 billion.

European midmarket buyout firm Mutares in Munich has sold its remaining 46% stake in Nordic region road operations and maintenance company Terranor Group to international investors through a private placement. The Stockholm-listed company had a market capitalization equivalent to about $53.3 million Wednesday. Mutares first invested in the business in 2020 through a carve-out from NCC and began exiting last year, after Terranor listed its shares. The investment overall generated proceeds of about €50 million, or $58.1 million, and returned more than the firm's target.

Graphite Capital is selling life-sciences software developer Beacon to Corten Capital. Beacon was recently carved out of Graphite-backed Hanson Wade, a provider of data and industry-focused events, and its sale is expected to return about four times the firm's overall investment in Hanson Wade.

Lone Star Funds in Dallas has sold Reserve at Spring Creek, a 458-unit multifamily community in Richardson, Texas, to real estate investment firm MG Properties.

Oakley Capital in London has signed up former Formula One autoracing executive and driver Christian Horner to advise the firm on sports investments. Horner is a former chief executive of the Red Bull F1 team, leading it to multiple victories over two decades.

Midmarket-focused H.I.G. Capital has added Brian Dutzar as a managing director and Adam Whitman and Steven Stack as principals with the private wealth management team with its capital formation group. Dutzar was previously with Monroe Capital, Whitman was with Sculptor Capital and Stack joins from Neuberger Berman.

Hamilton Lane reported flat fiscal fourth quarter fee-related earnings while assets under management rose about 2.6% to $141.83 billion at the end of March from a year earlier. Assets under advisement climbed by $85.84 billion, or about 10%, to around $905.32 billion over the same period. The Conshohocken, Pa.-based firm said fourth quarter FRE came to about $89.9 million. But net income surged 31% to almost $66.2 million, or $1.57 per share. The firm's stock rose 4.1% Thursday.

London-listed buyout firm ICG ended fiscal 2026 with assets of $126 billion as of the end of March, up by $14 billion, or 8%, from a year earlier, including $40 billion raised since April 1, 2024, a regulatory filing shows. The firm's fee-related earnings rose 23% to £349.5 million, or 120 pence per share. The firm's shares rose about 2.9% in London Thursday.

Swiss private-equity firm Partners Group established a new investment strategy aimed at producing both recurring income and a long-term rise in asset values. The new Total Return strategy will use low levels of debt to make control investments in cash flow-generating businesses across sectors such as industrial manufacturing, distribution, transportation and logistics and healthcare, as well as consumer and business services.

Private equity's global distribution rate remained at 13% last year, the same level recorded in 2024 and far below the 10-year peak of 28% achieved in 2021, WSJ Pro's Luis Garcia reports for Dow Jones Newswires, citing MSCI data. The depressed gauge reflects fund managers' ongoing difficulty in selling assets and returning cash to investors, the benchmark index provider said. Distribution rate measures the annualized ratio between cash returned to fund investors and the total value of fund assets.

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Maria Armental; Ted Bunker; Chris Cumming; Luis Garcia; Laura Kreutzer; Isaac Taylor; Chitra Vemuri.