Good day. Blackstone-backed Anthos Therapeutics, a startup seeking to compete with larger drugmakers in the market for anticoagulants, received a dose of good news from a clinical trial of a blood thinner designed to prevent dangerous blood clots without increasing risk of bleeding for patients.

Blood thinners are prescribed to patients with atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat that can cause blood to pool and clot. The clots can cause strokes if they are pumped to the brain. Existing blood thinners include Xarelto, a drug sold by Bayer and Johnson & Johnson. The drug, which blocks a clotting protein known as Factor Xa, received Food and Drug Administration approval in 2011. J&J says Xarelto has been prescribed more than 80 million times in the U.S. alone.

Blackstone Life Sciences, an investment arm of private-equity firm Blackstone, founded Anthos in 2019 to advance an anticoagulant licensed from drugmaker Novartis. The company’s drug, abelacimab, blocks a different clotting factor from Xarelto, as it is designed to lock the clotting protein Factor XI in its inactive state. This inhibits both Factor XI and its activated form, Factor XIa, according to Anthos.

Anthos has been testing abelacimab against Xarelto in a clinical trial of atrial fibrillation patients at moderate to high risk of stroke. On Monday, the startup said the study was stopped early by an independent committee that reviews data from the trial.

The reason was that patients receiving the drug had significantly fewer major and clinically relevant non-major bleeding events compared with patients receiving Xarelto, Anthos said. Stopping the trial gives patients who received Xarelto the option to receive Anthos’ drug, Chief Executive John Glasspool said. 

Major bleeding events are often internal bleeding and medical emergencies, while clinically relevant non-major bleeding requires treatment but is less severe, Glasspool said.

Anthos now aims to complete confirmatory clinical trials. Competitors include Johnson & Johnson and drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb, which have teamed up to develop a blood thinner that inhibits Factor XIa.

And now on to the news...

Instacart prices at top end of expectations. Instacart said it set a price of $30 a share for its initial public offering, at the high end of expectations, in a further sign of resurgence in the IPO market, The Wall Street Journal reports.

• At that price, the grocery-delivery company, which had been aiming for $28 to $30 a share after raising its target range, would be valued at $9.9 billion on a fully diluted basis. The pricing sets the stage for the San Francisco-based company to start trading Tuesday on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol CART.
   
• Instacart’s IPO follows the successful debut last week of British chip designer Arm, and should its shares trade well too, that could help set the stage for more startups to list their stocks.

Recently formed investment firm Humble Growth raised more than $312 million for its debut fund to back consumer brands, WSJ Pro reports. The New York firm’s three founders keep their pitch to prospective investment targets simple: They have been entrepreneurs themselves and understand the growing pains that startups endure. The three managing partners of Humble Management—which operates as Humble Growth—Peter Rahal, Dr. Andrew Abraham and Nick Giannuzzi each started at least one business before they came together last year to set up Humble to work with emerging entrepreneurs.

Does M&A work? The latest research says it’s a tossup, WSJ reports.

Business-school students are often taught that successful mergers and acquisitions are a long shot. One influential Harvard Business Review article, dating from 2011, says a range of studies show roughly 70% to 90% of deals fail to create value for the buyer. And many investors worry that takeovers are more reliably lucrative for investment banks—which LSEG says earned some $13.1 billion in M&A fees in the first half of this year—than for the acquiring companies and their shareholders. But more recent research from academics and consultants puts the success rate closer to even.

On the eve of recessions in 1990, 2001 and 2007, many Wall Street economists proclaimed the U.S. was on the cusp of achieving a soft landing, in which interest-rate increases corralled inflation without causing a recession. Similarly, this summer’s combination of easing inflation and a cooling labor market has fueled optimism among economists and Federal Reserve officials that this elusive goal might be in reach.

• But soft landings are rare for a reason: They are tricky to pull off. “You need a lot of luck,” said Antúlio Bomfim, a former adviser to Fed Chair Jerome Powell who is now at Northern Trust Asset Management.

Read the full WSJ article. 

Funds

Crypto-focused Blockchain Capital closed $380 million for its sixth early-stage fund, and $200 million for the firm’s first opportunity fund.

People

Mayfield appointed Sri Pangulur as a partner, where he will focus on investing out of the firm’s Select/Spring funds. He was previously at Tribe Capital.

Transform VC, a venture capital investment and advisory firm, added Saafir Rabb as an advisor.

Pryon, a Raleigh, N.C.-based startup bringing artificial intelligence to knowledge management, closed a $100 million Series B round. US Innovative Technology Fund led the investment, with Elizabeth Stein joining the board. 

Writer, a San Francisco-based full-stack generative AI platform for enterprises, scored $100 million in Series B funding. Iconiq Growth led the round, which included participation from Accenture Ventures and others. Doug Pepper from Iconiq Growth joined the company’s board.

Dragos, a Hanover, Md.-based provider of cybersecurity software specifically designed to defend industrial technology environments, added a $74 million extension to its original Series D funding round, which was held in October 2021. WestCap led the latest tranche.

HiddenLayer, an Austin, Texas-based security provider for artificial intelligence models and assets, raised $50 million in Series A funding led by M12 and Moore Strategic Ventures.

Beat The Bomb, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based interactive social video game startup, secured $15 million in Series B financing from Otium Capital and Conversion Venture Capital.

Boxbot, an Alameda, Calif.-based startup that sorts and stores packages for last-mile carriers, landed a $12 million Series A round. Playground Global led the funding, with Partner Richard Peretz joining the board.

Series AI, a generative AI game studio and technology startup, fetched $7.9 million in seed funding from investors including a16z Games.

Paxton, a Portland, Ore.-based generative AI legal assistant, was seeded with a $6 million investment led by WVV Capital.

Aspinity, a Pittsburgh, Pa.-based AI chip startup, completed a $5 million Series B round from Anzu Partners, Birchmere Ventures and others.

Sidekick Browser, a San Francisco-based startup offering a subscription browser designed for workers and teams, picked up a $4 million investment from Runa Capital and others.

Discern Security, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AI-powered cybersecurity provider, emerged from stealth with $3 million in seed funding from investors including Boldcap and Cyber Mentor Fund.

Pliable, a San Francisco-based data management startup, exited stealth with $2.5 million in seed financing led by Resolute Ventures.

• New York regulator to require higher standards for coin listings and delistings
   
• CEO of Naspers and Prosus steps down 
   
• Tesla, Saudi Arabia in early talks for EV factory
   
• The tech trade is showing cracks. Higher rates for longer spell more trouble.
   
• iOS 17 is here. Finally, an iPhone update for people who still like making calls.

• Ant to pull out of $100 million fund in retreat from crypto (Bloomberg)
   
• ChatGPT isn’t coming for your coding job (Wired)
   
• 11 influential angel investors funding creator-economy startups — and how they decide where to put their money (Insider)
   
• Agility Robotics is opening a humanoid robot factory (CNBC)

This newsletter was compiled by Matthew Strozier and Zachary Cole.

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley, Angus Loten and Marc Vartabedian.

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