Good day. Jeito Capital has co-led a venture round of about $175 million in Swiss startup Alentis Therapeutics, continuing a trend toward mega financings in biotechnology.

The number of biotech venture deals weighing in at $100 million or more has increased this year as the outlook for the industry improves and as investors channel more of their dollars to what they see as the most-promising companies. 

Paris-based Jeito raised a €534 million ($569 million) debut fund in 2021 and has invested that pool in 15 companies. It is making its most significant follow-on investments to about a third of its portfolio companies, said Dr. Rafaèle Tordjman, founder and chief executive of the firm.

Alentis is one of the companies designated for significant reinvestment. Jeito first backed Alentis three years ago and the company has built up a pipeline of potential treatments for cancer and organ fibrosis.

Alentis’ drugs take aim at a target known as Claudin-1, a protein that is overabundant in fibrosis and many cancers. In cancer, for example, it is involved in protecting tumors from the immune system, according to Alentis.

Jeito has continued to reinvest to help Alentis build a diversified portfolio that reduces its risks and maximizes its potential upside, Tordjman said.

And now on to the news...

Green investing. A new Trump administration may raise supply-chain and regulatory risks for clean-energy investors, but that won’t derail investment opportunities in the industry and credit deals in particular, according to investment executives, WSJ Pro reports.

• Wind- and solar-power project developers and the investors who back them could face hurdles if Donald Trump makes good on promised tariffs on imported clean-energy equipment and the elimination of industry tax incentives, speakers said during a panel discussion Monday at the SuperReturn Energy investment conference in New York.
   
• “If you think about the possibility of the Trump administration putting a 60% or further tariff on solar-panel imports from China, it’s really relevant,” said Bill Sonneborn, president of Generate Capital. His San Francisco investment firm focuses on backing sustainable infrastructure and related businesses.

With President-elect Donald Trump preparing to take office, business technology leaders say they are bracing for immediate and long-term impacts from policies he will likely institute. That is in areas including tariffs, regulating artificial intelligence and mergers and acquisitions, The Wall Street Journal reports. For chief information officers, AI continues to be top of mind. While the urgency to deploy the technology inside their organizations continues unabated, CIOs are keeping a keen eye on how the federal government might play a role in reining in the technology, or encouraging it to thrive. “The way AI affects a CIO’s job is primarily around strategic planning,” said Suvajit Basu, the former CIO of Goya Foods. That includes things like whether AI will be “intelligent enough” to improve the efficiency of logistics planning, and how it will shape the workforce, he said.

Donald Trump’s election win means the almost certain end of Gary Gensler’s leadership of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the ambitious agenda he forged, which garnered plaudits from some as well as resentment from many business leaders, cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and even farmers, WSJ reports. Gensler’s push for new climate disclosure rules, strong cryptocurrency enforcement and a focus on environmental, social and corporate-governance issues could be scaled back—or simply end—under a new SEC leader of Trump’s choosing. Gensler’s Senate-approved term runs to 2026, but SEC leaders customarily resign when a new administration is elected, and he hasn’t indicated in public appearances that he would buck the norm.

People

Radical Ventures named Richa Mehta as a partner, where she will help lead the firm's growth strategy. She was previously a principal at Iconiq Capital.

TDK Ventures appointed Ravi Jain to lead the firm’s new India operations. He will work alongside Vasan Churchill, who will drive investment analysis. Jain was most recently at Krutrim, while Churchill was previously at Adaxis.

Neo Financial, a Canadian fintech startup, landed 110 million Canadian dollars in equity alongside C$250 million in debt from investors including Valar Ventures. 

Lean Technologies, a Saudi Arabia-based fintech infrastructure platform, scored $67.5 million in Series B funding led by General Catalyst.

11x, a San Francisco-based provider of AI-powered digital workers for revenue teams, closed a $50 million Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

Northflank, a London-based workload platform for developers, has raised $22.3 million in new funding, including a $16 million Series A round led by Bain Capital Ventures.

Cogna, a London-based startup using AI-powered software development to address business inefficiencies across critical industries, raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Notion Capital.

Brightpick, a provider of warehouse automation technology for order fulfillment, added $12 million in equity and debt financing from investors including EBRD Venture Capital.

BetHog, a New York-based crypto casino and sportsbook, launched with $6 million in seed funding led by 6MV.

Oyster, a global employment platform, snagged a $5 million investment from ServiceNow Ventures.

Deckmatch, an Oslo-based startup using artificial intelligence to streamline private market workflows, secured $3.1 million in seed funding co-led by Alliance VC and Luminar Ventures. The company will use the investment to open an office in Palo Alto, Calif.

• Tencent to invest $500 million in cloud infrastructure in Indonesia
   
• 23andMe lays off 40% of staff, shuts drug development business
   
• Aristocrat to sell Palarium Mobile Gaming for up to $820 million
   
• Google executive picked to supercharge news efforts has resigned

• Indonesian VC firm Intudo raises $125M across two funds (TechCrunch)
   
• Green startups complain AI is sucking up VC funding (Arabian Gulf Business Insights)

This newsletter was compiled by Marc Vartabedian 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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