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  • Weekly Exit – September 2025 | Issue 37

Weekly Exit – September 2025 | Issue 37

Your weekly 5-minute digest for this week’s exits

September 13, 2025

🔥 Top Exits & Liquidity Events

  • F5 → CalypsoAI (AI Security) — $180M. Brings AI guardrails into F5’s app delivery & security platform.

  • Minute Media → VideoVerse (Sports/AI Video) — Undisclosed. Adds Magnifi’s AI clipping/short-form engine to Minute Media’s portfolio.

  • SMBC-led consortium → Air Lease (Aircraft Lessor) — $7.4B take-private. One of the year’s largest transport finance deals.

  • Aon → Madison Dearborn (Wealth Businesses) — $2.7B carve-out. Sponsor re-acquires businesses it knows well.

  • Kraken → Breakout (Prop Trading Infra) — Undisclosed. Expands Kraken into evaluation-model prop trading.

💡 Total disclosed deal value: ~$10.3B+
(plus IPO activity in fintech and crypto adding to the week’s momentum).

📊 Deal Deep Dives

F5 → CalypsoAI — $180M

  • Enterprises need guardrails as GenAI hits production.

  • F5 can now deliver prompt/output controls directly in its traffic flow.

  • Lesson: Controls closest to inference and data flows win; distribution matters.

Minute Media → VideoVerse — Undisclosed

  • Sports rights-holders need scalable short-form content.

  • VideoVerse’s AI clipping generates sponsor-ready inventory in real time.

  • Lesson: AI that manufactures monetizable content earns premium multiples.

Air Lease → SMBC Consortium — $7.4B

  • Scarce new-tech aircraft + orderbook scale drives deal logic.

  • Financing certainty makes leasing an attractive consolidation play.

  • Lesson: In capital-intensive categories, scale + cheap capital outweigh margin compression.

💵 Valuations & Comps

  • AI Security tuck-ins: $100–300M band (CalypsoAI fits).

  • Wealth carve-outs: Sponsors paying ~20× EBITDA for known platforms.

  • Transport finance: Less about multiples, more about EV, orderbooks, and funding costs.

Trend: Strategics pay up for workflow control. Sponsors focus on cash flow durability and carve-outs.

📌 Milestone Signals

  • Klarna IPO: Priced at $40; trading stable.

  • Gemini IPO: Priced above range; strong first-day pop.

  • Lendbuzz: Filed for IPO with 38% H1 revenue growth.

  • More to come: StubHub and Netskope eye near-term marketing windows.

🗺️ Sector Heatmap

  • Cyber/AI Security — $180M

  • Sports/AI Media Infra — Undisclosed

  • Aircraft Leasing — $7.4B

  • Wealth/Asset Management — $2.7B

  • Crypto Infra — Undisclosed

🔥 Theme: AI at the edges (security, content) + scale economics (leasing, wealth) dominated deal value.

🧑‍💼 Executive & Org Moves

  • Walgreens (private): Installed new CEO Day-0 to accelerate turnaround.

  • IPO candidates: Ramping up CFO/finance hires ahead of filings.

Signal: Transaction-aligned leadership changes remain the best near-term exit tells.

🏦 Private Equity Watch

  • Carve-outs rising: Sponsors buying non-core assets from strategics.

  • Private credit: Speeds up $1–5B EV transactions; less reliance on banks.

  • Secondaries: $20B+ funds provide LP liquidity and help smooth exit pipelines.

⚖️ Regulation & Review

  • Big Tech remedies: Courts now cite AI challengers when weighing search market remedies.

  • EU Data Act: Enforcement deadlines hitting; diligence packs expanding to include portability & provenance.

  • Bank M&A chatter: Softer rates revive regional consolidation buzz.

🎯 Exit Prep Tip of the Week

Build a “Telemetry One-Pager.”
Show investors or acquirers:

  1. Cohort NRR by segment

  2. Unit economics under AI load

  3. Compliance posture (governance, data portability)

  4. Cash conversion & private-credit readiness

Clarity on these four items = higher multiples.

🔮 Market Pulse & Deal Radar

  • IPO window: Klarna and Gemini priced; Lendbuzz filed; Legence also in market.

  • M&A cadence: More AI security + media tooling tuck-ins expected; wealth carve-outs remain hot.

  • Macro: Job softness but credit spreads steady; constructive for Q4 deal math.

📝 Signals Playbook

  • Founder takeaway: Make your product the default path in critical workflows. Distribution wins.

  • Investor takeaway: Follow licenses and orderbooks—scarcity drives exits.

📚 Resource Spotlight

  • IPO Calendars: Track post-Labor-Day slates.

  • AI Governance Checklists: Map compliance to new rules.

  • PE Integration Playbooks: 100-day carve-out plans are today’s alpha.

✍️ Editorial Closing

This week, exits spanned two poles: AI at the edge (guardrails, media engines) and scale economics (leasing, wealth).
If you’re building in either orbit, exits are open—if your telemetry is crisp and your regulatory posture is turnkey.