Good morning, and welcome to the WSJ Pro Private Equity newsletter.

We all know life insurance companies have been piling into private assets over the past decade. The Journal's Heather Gillers reports that other insurers are now doing the same, as major property and casualty insurers put more of their assets into private equity and private credit.

Meanwhile, our newest Pro Venture Capital reporter Sarah Klearman reports that venture-backed Beacon Software has raised $225 million to execute an AI twist on the classic private-equity roll-up strategy.

Now onto the news ...

Home and car insurers are joining other deep-pocketed institutions from life insurance companies to university endowments in snapping up private investments. But as the Journal reports, they are late to the party. Major property and casualty insurers such as Allstate, Liberty Mutual and Nationwide kept at least 15% of their holdings in assets such as private equity and hedge funds last year, according to research by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Other carriers, including the Hartford Insurance Group, Chubb  and USAA, keep less money in such investments, but their share more than doubled in the past decade, S&P Global analyst Tim Zawacki found.

Beacon Software is forging a twist on a classic private-equity strategy: a venture-backed deal to build an artificial-intelligence conglomerate through an investment roll-up approach, reports Sarah Klearman for WSJ Pro. Beacon is a holding company that acquires software companies, injects them with AI and rolls them into a portfolio to hold indefinitely. The company has raised a $225 million Series C round, funding that it will use to make acquisitions and improve the AI operating system it provides its portfolio companies.

WSJ Sports: The Next Sports Economy will bring together investors, team owners, executives and advisers at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York July 15-16 for conversations on the forces transforming the business of sports. Join leaders from across finance, media, ownership and operations as they sit down with WSJ reporters to explore the future of investment, governance and value creation across the global sports landscape.

Carlyle Group has acquired a majority interest in wealth adviser MAI Capital Management, which it has backed since 2021, in a deal that provided an exit for Galway Holdings, Harvest Partners and Oak Hill Capital. The deal valued the Cleveland-based business at more than $2.8 billion. MAI employees continue to hold significant minority stakes. The company manages or advises on about $77.3 billion.

Thoma Bravo is buying Toronto-listed Kneat.com for about 650 million Canadian dollars, or roughly $466.3 million, or C$6.50 a share in cash, Robb M. Stewart reports for Dow Jones Newswires. The price represents a 20% premium to Friday's close and comes about a month after the specialist in digitizing life-sciences data began a strategic review. Kneat's products are used for validation and compliance.

Arcline Investment Management is acquiring the corporate parent of Continental Aerospace Technologies for about $535 million. Mobile, Ala.-based Continental designs and manufactures piston aircraft engines and provides aftermarket products and services for the aviation industry.

Carr’s Hill Capital Partners Management in New Orleans has backed Opti-Com Manufacturing Network and Sunbelt Innovative Plastics, marking the firm’s third main investment from its debut fund. The combined company, referred to as Omni, designs and manufactures conduit products and systems used in communication, transportation, utility and other industrial and infrastructure markets across the Southeastern U.S.

Midmarket infrastructure investor Mascarene Partners has acquired two businesses to form Iron Pillar United Mining Group, based in Conyers, Ga. The businesses the firm acquired, General Drilling and Two Eight Southeast, serve aggregate producers and quarry owners.

Viking Global Investors and Sofinnova Investments joined existing backers including Slate Path Capital and Rock Springs Capital in a $99.5 million growth investment in biopharmaceutical company City Therapeutics. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company is developing ribonucleic acid interference-based medicines.

Brookfield Asset Management and Canadian pension manager Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, or La Caisse, have won court approval to take Toronto-listed renewable energy company Boralex private at an implied equity value of about $6.5 billion. Shareholders backed the deal last week. Brookfield is investing through its infrastructure strategy.

Impact investment firm Achieve Partners is backing Alchemy, a company that offers internship infrastructure services for employers, educational institutions and prospective interns, according to an emailed announcement. Achieve, which closed a $450 million fund earlier this year, has structured the Alchemy investment by combining the company with Ease Learning, a portfolio company the firm backed out of its first fund.

Kayne Anderson's real estate arm is recapitalizing a collection of five developments in Texas held by owner-operator Tradition Senior Living, which is partnering with the Kayne Anderson unit while remaining the manager of the properties. Combined, the holdings have 1,546 units, including 1,047 for independent living, 348 for assisted living and 151 for memory care.

Carlyle Group has agreed to acquire Chung Ho Group at an equity value of $700 million, seeking to support the South Korean home and healthcare appliance rental company's growth, Megan Cheah reports for Dow Jones Newswires, citing people familiar with the matter. The Washington-based firm is investing through its Carlyle Asia Partners strategy. The firm is buying the business from the family of late founder H.D. Joung.

Oak HC/FT led a $55 million growth investment in healthcare training services provider Stepful, joined by others including Foresite Capital and existing backers. The company offers online skills training and serves over 35 healthcare systems.

Blackstone and the asset management arm of JPMorgan Chase & Co. are providing $281 million to finance a collection of 77 industrial outdoor storage properties held by Catalyst Investment Partners. The sites serve 12 major markets, among them Miami and Washington.

Lower midmarket firm Godspeed Capital Management is backing space and defense technology infrastructure company JP Donovan. The Rockledge, Fla.-based company provides engineering and manufacturing services to support launch operations and national security missions.

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

Star Therapeutics, whose minority investors include Sofinnova Investments, the Qatar Investment Authority, OrbiMed and RA Capital Management, is selling its Vega Therapeutics unit to strategic buyer Incyte for up to $2 billion. Incyte will pay an initial $1.25 billion in cash and as much as $750 million more later, based on sales milestones, Colin Kellaher reports for the Journal. Vega is developing treatments for bleeding disorders. Sofinnova led a $90 million growth investment in South San Francisco-based Star in September 2023.

Bain Capital in Boston is acquiring a majority stake in Audax-backed supply-chain services provider FDH Aero in Commerce, Calif. Audax, which has held a majority stake in the company since 2017, will remain a minority shareholder through its private-equity strategy. Boston-based Audax acquired a majority interest in the company, which specializes in aerospace and defense industry supply chains, in 2017.

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners is selling a minority interest in the 500-megawatt Devilla battery storage project in Kincardine, Scotland, which is set to begin operating in 2028. Minority stakes were acquired by the Scottish National Investment Bank and the U.K.'s Nuclear Liabilities Fund.

Baillie Gifford-backed digital services provider Bending Spoons has registered for an initial public offering of shares in the U.S. without saying how many it plans to sell or at what price range. The Italian company, also backed by Luxembourg-based investor Galileo Quattordici, operates Evernote, AOL.com and Vimeo, among other internet-based services, and could fetch a valuation of around $20 billion, according to a Reuters report in April. The Milan company buys and revamps digital businesses and was valued at $11 billion in a $710 million growth investment round in October.

Parabilis Medicines, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company whose backers include RA Capital Management and Cormorant Asset Management, plans to sell 25 million shares priced from $17 to $19 each in an initial public offering expected this week by market watcher Renaissance Capital. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company's significant investors also include the Johnson family's FMR with a more than 11% stake, a regulatory filing shows.

Asset manager Future Standard, formerly known as FS Investments in Philadelphia, has collected about $3 billion for its latest secondaries-focused fund, Portfolio Advisors Secondary Fund V. The firm, which acquired Portfolio Advisors in June 2023 and now manages about $94 billion, was known as Franklin Square Capital Partners when it began operating in 2007. The newly closed secondary fund represents the firm's biggest capital pool raised so far.

Pictet has raised $1.53 billion for its Monte Rosa Co-Investments VI private-equity fund, managed by its Pictet Alternative Advisors arm. The total surpassed the firm's $1 billion goal and is 70% larger than its predecessor, which the firm closed in 2023. Geneva-based Pictet aims to make 25 to 30 co-investments, mainly in buyouts, through the fund and has already committed to 14 deals with the vehicle. Overall, Pictet managed about 757 billion francs, or roughly $950.65 billion, at the end of last year.

Financial services-focused Estancia Capital Management in Scottsdale, Ariz., has closed on $367 million for its Estancia Capital Partners Fund III buyout vehicle, topping a $350 million goal. The fresh capital boosts the firm's assets to about $965 million. In September, the firm acquired real estate compensation management company eCommission Financial Services, investing through the new fund.

RBC Global Asset Management launched a new interval fund, called RBC BlueBay Enhanced Income Fund, to offer investors access to alternative credit markets through collateralized loan obligations. The fund invests mainly in equity and junior debt tranches of CLOs in the U.S. market.

EQT appointed Gustav Segerberg as chief financial officer, effective July 18. He is replacing Kim Henriksson, who decided to step down to become a senior adviser after nearly eight years in the role. Segerberg, who has been with the Stockholm-listed firm for about a decade, was most recently head of the CEO office.

Infrastructure-focused DigitalBridge Group in Boca Raton, Fla., has appointed new arrivals Brent Mayo as a managing director, investment management, and Nicholas Beatty as an operating partner. Mayo was most recently with Newmark Group while Beatty retired from Zenobē Energy, a fleet and grid-scale battery storage company, in late 2024.

Lower midmarket firm Banner Capital has hired McKay Potter as a principal. Potter joins from Salt Lake City, Utah-based Tower Arch Capital, where he was a vice president.

A blank-check company chaired by Kingstown Capital Management founder Michael Blitzer, Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. VI, has agreed to combine with venture-backed Quantum Space to give the Rockville, Md.-based company a public listing in a deal that values the business at about $1.2 billion once it closes. Current Quantum investors are expected to retain a roughly 50% stake in the combined company. The transaction includes a $300 million investment from Inflection Point Asset Management, whose co-founder Kevin Shannon serves as chief executive of the special-purpose acquisition company buying Quantum. Quantum is developing maneuverable spacecraft for defense and civilian uses, Micah Maidenberg reports for the Journal.

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