Sam Ravani

Clearwater Analytics and the Case for Private Ownership in Fintech Clearwater Analytics has agreed to an eight point four billion dollar take private deal led by Permira and Warburg Pincus. On the surface, it looks like a large fintech transaction. In reality, it says something deeper about where long term value is being built. Clearwater sits at the core of institutional investing. Accounting, performance, and risk systems that clients cannot easily replace. Yet as the platform grew through acquisitions, public markets became impatient with complexity. Private capital saw the opposite. Time. Focus. Optionality. This deal reflects a broader shift in 2025. Complex enterprise platforms are increasingly better suited to private ownership when integration and long horizon investment matter more than quarterly optics. I explore what this means for fintech, enterprise software, and capital markets in the full article here: 👉 https://lnkd.in/eGfUvDJG Curious to hear how others see the balance between public scrutiny and private patience. #Fintech #PrivateEquity #EnterpriseSoftware #CapitalMarkets #Investing #BusinessStrategy #SaaS #FinancialInfrastructure #LongTermValue #TechnologyLeadership

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Every week our Blue Bear Capital intern Beary (a North American Blue Bear, Ursinus College MBA, interned at Twitter and Palantir, actually a bot) forages through the Blue Bear firm-wide Slack covering 40 portfolio companies and dozens of investment themes for insights we wouldn’t otherwise find or share. Warning: he’s been trained on a diet of Yogi Bear and Andy Rooney, so he’s hangry but he means well. Our re-posts are not an endorsement of the insight, accuracy, or humor. Public Edition 1 below: 🐻 The Bear's Week in Slack 🐻 Did you ever notice that everybody can build software now? Used to be you needed a whole team and the better part of a year. Now some junior ranger on cowork ships the same thing over a weekend. That makes a bear think. When features get that cheap, a basket full of features stops being the treasure. The same AI that lets our companies build faster and run leaner also lets the big incumbents whip up their own tools in-house. Like one of our founders said the other day "our customers might become our biggest competitors". So what are we actually guarding in that basket? The companies that hold up are the ones sitting on something you can't just download. For example Raptor Maps and Hydrosat and Korial gather multi-spectral sensor feeds from scores of drones and industrial robots and satellites across 10s of gigawatts of assets and thousands of acres of land owned by dozens of different companies. You can't scrape that from Reddit, friends. Features get commoditized. Proprietary data, workflow lock-in, and earned trust don't. That's the whole insight. Anyway — I've been at this twenty-two seconds and nobody's brought me a picnic basket. 🐻 Smarter than your average blog 🐻

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With $3.2 trillion in PE assets awaiting exits and a jammed IPO queue, SPACs have re-emerged as a viable path to liquidity for sponsors and LPs seeking alternatives to traditional timelines. https://lnkd.in/e7c2FH_S  #SPAC x Willow Lane Capital Group

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Private Equity’s OUTSIZED Role in 2024 Bankruptcies Here’s another reason I believe so strongly in ESOPs.   I know some really talented private equity professionals and some outstanding PE firms – ones who deliver on the mantra of buying underperforming companies and improving operational performance while generating a market rate return based on the Company’s success at exit.  But anyone who hangs around the private capital markets knows that this type of PE investor is in the minority. In an age of over-leverage, dividend recaps and debt-fueled bankruptcies, private equity’s growing role in the U.S. economy is showing cracks. The most recent data from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project is pretty damning.  Though PE firms represent just 6.5% of the U.S. economy, they were responsible for 56% of the largest bankruptcies in 2024—those with liabilities over $500M—and 11% of all bankruptcies overall.  This led directly to 65,000+ layoffs nationwide. PE firms played a role in 65% of billion-dollar or greater bankruptcies during the first half of 2024. And no surprise to anyone paying attention, a familiar pattern emerges: debt-fueled takeovers, dividend extractions, and short-term profit priorities that weaken companies instead of strengthening them. If you need further evidence Moody's Ratings reports that FULLY 73% of the most speculative U.S. companies (B3 Negative and lower) are now private-equity backed.  That’s not exactly reassuring and definitely not a great outlook for 2025 and beyond.  With healthcare, retail, manufacturing and other vital sectors serving as the current playground for private equity isn’t it beyond time to ask whether this model is building long-term value as the PE industry claims —or simply extracting it at everyone else’s expense. https://lnkd.in/ggeacqrK

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As #OZ 2.0 takes shape, the government of #puertorico has to make some critical decisions that will impact the future of #OpportunityZones in PR. Read the blog flby Shawn Hanson, one of the Partners of Monllor Capital Partners and the Puerto Rico Opprtunity Zone Fund II.

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This is an excellent report on the #VC activity in Florida for the first half of 2025, put together by our partner,s eMerge Americas. 💡 5 Takeaways from the eMerge Americas 1H 2025 Florida VC Insights Report: 1. Startups across Florida raised $2.85B across 270 deals, putting 2025 on pace for the strongest year since 2022. 2. AI dominates, 33% of all funded startups are AI-focused, with $830M raised in South Florida alone. 3. Cybersecurity and defense tech are booming, with Tampa emerging as “Cyber Bay” and major new AI-cyber programs launching. 4. Fintech, climatetech & Web3 continue to shine, with record funding and renewed investor confidence in Miami. 5. “If you’re not investing in AI, you’re asleep at the wheel,” says Me! https://lnkd.in/eVb-eYA9

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