Bamboo Postpones Its $700M IPO

Bamboo Insurance postponed its $700 million IPO Tuesday night, citing market conditions. It is the second sizable deal pulled in less than a week, after Holtec. Nvidia committed $1 billion ahead of Nscale’s planned IPO; the AI cloud company’s prospectus disclosed earlier doubts about its ability to continue operating. Modal Labs and Baseten are reportedly in funding talks at roughly triple and double their earlier valuations, while TypeSafe is reportedly discussing a valuation more than 50 times its reported seed mark from a week ago. Anthropic signed an $11.6 billion cloud deal with Akamai and is reportedly seeking a Palantir-style voting structure ahead of a potential IPO. OpenAI also disclosed that an AI agent breached an Australian government health portal, an incident it reportedly discovered in August and reported to Canberra on September 10.

Bamboo Insurance postponed its $700 million IPO

Bamboo Insurance Services, the CVC-backed Utah homeowners insurer, postponed its planned NYSE listing Tuesday night, citing market conditions, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg. The offering would have sold 35 million shares, all from existing holders, at $18 to $20 each. At the top of the range, it would have raised $700 million for selling shareholders and valued Bamboo at $3.13 billion. J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley were leading the offering.

Tuesday’s Pulse singled out Bamboo as a test of IPO demand outside AI, with all the proceeds going to existing shareholders. It is now the second sizable deal to come off the calendar in less than a week, after Holtec Nuclear suspended its $900 million IPO the night before pricing. Orion180, a specialty homeowners and flood insurer, priced its own IPO last week and is still trading below its offer price. More broadly, five of the ten largest US IPOs of 2026 now trade below where they priced, per public offering data, even in a year that has otherwise produced the strongest new-issue volume since 2021, per Renaissance Capital.

For secondary buyers counting on an IPO exit, a busy listing calendar offers no assurance that a particular deal will get done. Bamboo has not said when, or whether, it plans to relaunch the offering. The 10-year Treasury yield closed above 5% this week, and the 30-year hit its highest level since 2004 on Wednesday, adding pressure to new listings.

Reported private-company financials and secondary-market indications may be unaudited, incomplete, non-standard, or based on limited transaction activity. They should not be relied upon as fair value, executable pricing, or a basis for any investment decision.

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Nvidia committed $1 billion ahead of Nscale’s planned IPO

Nscale, the London AI data-center developer reportedly targeting a $35 billion valuation in its NYSE listing, disclosed in its prospectus that management had “substantial doubt” about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern before a September 15 capital commitment from Nvidia, per Fortune. That commitment includes $1 billion in convertible notes or non-voting shares, on top of a $60 million warrant purchase covering roughly 158,000 Nscale shares and a guarantee of up to $860.3 million on Nscale’s lease obligations at a Ward County, Texas facility. Nscale lost $1.02 billion on $140.6 million of revenue in the six months to June 30.

Nvidia is now Nscale’s largest supplier, one of its largest financial backers, and reportedly soon one of its largest shareholders. Fortune quoted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: “If we didn’t support Nscale, they wouldn’t be where they are today.” Nscale’s contract backlog is $103 billion as of August 31, per a filing summary, with 85% of it concentrated in Microsoft and Anthropic and much of it not yet firm, per Fortune’s reporting on the S-1.

Nvidia is helping finance a customer that buys its chips, a relationship that has drawn scrutiny across the AI cloud sector. CoreWeave priced its 2025 IPO below range before its stock later rose. Nscale is seeking public investors while disclosing substantial losses, concentrated contracts and a reliance on outside financing.

AI startups seek steep valuation increases

Modal Labs is reportedly in talks to raise at close to $15 billion, up from $4.65 billion in May, per Bloomberg. Baseten is reportedly in talks at around $26 billion, up from $13 billion in June, per Axios. Both companies sell infrastructure for running AI models in production rather than building the models themselves. Inference accounts for roughly two-thirds of AI compute demand, according to Sacra.

Neither round has closed, and both valuations are subject to the outcome of negotiations still underway. AI coding-tools startup TypeSafe is reportedly in talks to raise more than $1 billion at a valuation above $10 billion, per The Information, a week after it announced a $40 million seed round that PitchBook priced at a $200 million valuation. That would be more than a fiftyfold increase.

Power 20 Watch

“Power 20” refers to Augment’s internal ranking of selected private-market activity. It may not represent the broader private market and should not be treated as a valuation benchmark.

Anthropic and OpenAI reportedly pushed back the expected timelines for potential IPOs this week; Anthropic to November and OpenAI beyond 2026. We’re watching whether those delays affect secondary activity in names like Databricks, Stripe and Crusoe as shareholders wait longer for potential public listings.

Secondary indications for Databricks and Stripe rose this week. Forge’s posted price for Databricks implied a $201.6 billion valuation as of Wednesday, above the $190 billion the company set in its own primary round in August. Stripe’s Forge price implied $184.4 billion, also above the $159 billion mark from its February tender offer. Those increases contrast with the narrowing premium Thursday’s Pulse described in VCX’s Anthropic-heavy holdings, though the companies, structures and holder bases differ.

Augment and/or its affiliates hold a position in Anthropic.

Quick Takes

Anthropic signed an $11.6 billion cloud-services deal with Akamai. The seven-year commitment, disclosed Thursday, comes with a warrant to buy Akamai shares at $111.33 each: 2% tied to the initial spending commitment, with another 3% vesting if the deal expands by up to $9 billion more. Akamai shares jumped about 20% in after-hours trading. Augment and/or its affiliates hold a position in Anthropic.

Anthropic is reportedly asking shareholders to approve a Palantir-style voting structure ahead of a potential IPO. Per The Information, the arrangement would give its seven co-founders 50.1% of voting power on most matters through a separate holding entity, contingent on at least three of them keeping a minimum stake, while the Long-Term Benefit Trust would still appoint a majority of the board. The report, not yet confirmed by Anthropic, cites a target valuation as high as $2 trillion, above the roughly $1.2 trillion discussed in earlier reporting this week. Augment and/or its affiliates hold a position in Anthropic.

Oracle sent Blue Owl a force-majeure notice on the Project Jupiter data center. The notice would let Oracle delay payments on the 2.5-gigawatt New Mexico campus, planned to cost up to $165 billion and come online in 2028, after New Mexico regulators rejected a natural-gas pipeline extension the project needs. Oracle said the project “remains on our planned schedule.”

OpenAI disclosed that one of its AI agents breached an Australian government health-statistics portal. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the agent worked around access blocks on its own while researching public health-spending data. OpenAI reportedly found the incident in August during a review of misaligned model activity and did not notify Canberra until September 10, a delay Albanese called “obviously unacceptable.” Deputy PM Richard Marles said the accessed data was not particularly sensitive.

New York’s attorney general sued Polymarket. Letitia James’s office filed suit Thursday alleging Polymarket’s US entity operates as an unlicensed gambling business under state law, despite the company’s federal designation as a CFTC-registered exchange. The suit follows Tuesday’s Pulse item on the CFTC’s separate fraud inquiry and raises a separate dispute over state and federal jurisdiction.

Messaging platform Bird raised $450 million in JPMorgan-led debt. The company said the proceeds are earmarked to return cash to existing investors and employees rather than fund growth, a structure that provides liquidity without a new equity financing round.

The Funding Lineup

The following financing rounds are included for market context only and are not recommendations or valuation opinions.

Tekever: $580 million Series D at $6.4 billion (Sept. 23). The European AI drone maker’s round was led by UC Investments and Baillie Gifford, nearly quintupling its valuation months after a £400 million UK drone-supply deal.

Cyera: $400 million at $12 billion-plus (Sept. 22). Goldman Sachs led the round for the data-security platform at an unchanged valuation from its prior raise, bringing Cyera’s 2026 funding total to $1.4 billion.

Snorkel AI: $350 million Series E at $3.5 billion (Sept. 22). The valuation nearly tripled on demand for the company’s AI training-data infrastructure, with Insight Partners, S32 and Greylock participating.

Heidi Health: $340 million Series C at $900 million (Sept. 22). The clinical-documentation AI company’s round, led by General Catalyst, doubled its valuation as it expands from note-taking into supervised clinical agents.

Enveda: $311 million Series E (Sept. 23). The AI drug-discovery company’s round, reported at roughly $2 billion, will fund later-stage clinical programs in obesity and inflammatory disease.

Hubble Network: $200 million at $1.6 billion (Sept. 23). Smith Point Capital led the round for the satellite-based IoT connectivity company.

Data Point of the Day

$4 billion

The amount Bessemer Venture Partners earmarked for growth-stage investing out of the $5.75 billion it closed this week, its largest raise ever. Partner Byron Deeter told Bloomberg that AI companies staying private longer is a “permanent structural shift” rather than a cyclical one. The growth fund is intended to support the larger checks those companies need. Bessemer has invested roughly $3 billion in AI startups since 2022, across more than 260 companies.

Reported private-company financials and secondary-market indications may be unaudited, incomplete, non-standard, or based on limited transaction activity. They should not be relied upon as fair value, executable pricing, or a basis for any investment decision.

From the Manual

Going concern

A going-concern warning flags substantial doubt about a company’s ability to keep operating, often because of insufficient cash, mounting losses or difficulty securing financing. Under U.S. accounting rules, management assesses whether the company can meet its obligations over the year after its financial statements are issued or available to be issued. The warning does not mean the company has failed. It tells readers to examine the funding or other measures the company needs to continue operating, and whether those plans have addressed the doubt.

What We’re Watching

SpaceX’s first Starship orbital attempt, Monday. Booster 21 and Ship 41 were stacked at Starbase this week ahead of a launch window opening Monday morning, pending FAA approval. The nearly ten-hour flight, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites, would be Starship’s first full orbital attempt.

Oura’s IPO pricing. The smart-ring maker’s roadshow was still underway as of Thursday, with trading expected to begin next week. Whether it prices within its $40-to-$44 range may offer a second read on investor appetite, alongside Bamboo’s postponement and Nscale’s roadshow.

Nscale’s roadshow, after this week’s going-concern disclosure. How investors value Nscale after its financing commitment and earlier funding uncertainty. Its contract concentration also warrants attention, though Nscale, Crusoe and CoreWeave differ in customer mix, financing structure and stage.

Modal Labs’ and Baseten’s funding talks, still unclosed. Whether the rounds close at the reported valuations, and how quickly.