Venture Capital

The US Treasury bought back $6 billion of its own debt to lower bond yields. Total buybacks this month: $19.33 billion. ✔️ @venture

🚘 Volvo Extends Nvidia Self-Driving Partnership Volvo Cars expanded its nearly decade-long partnership with Nvidia. Future models will use Nvidia Hyperion sensors and compute, the Alpamayo software stack, and the Halos safety layer for hands-free, door-to-door driving across highways, city streets, and parking areas. The system is Level 2++ supervised autonomy, with drivers remaining responsible. It covers traffic lights, stop signs, and unprotected left turns. There will be no lidar at launch. The first vehicles are due before 2030, starting with a new model and expanding across Volvo’s lineup, excluding China. All current Volvo battery EVs already use Nvidia Orin chips. The deal extends that stack to sensors and to EV, plug-in hybrid, and gas models. With Alpamayo downloaded by more than 650,000 developers, Nvidia’s auto business offers another demand path if supervised autonomy reaches mass-market fleets before robotaxis. ✔️ @venture

🚀 AI Servers for Space Jensen Huang says Nvidia and SpaceX engineers are working on a new type of server for AI data centers in space that could also work on Earth. He compared Elon to Google because he trains AI models, runs Grok, and rents out compute. Nvidia is helping design infrastructure that SpaceX could eventually take into orbit using reusable rockets. ✔️ @venture

📈 ETF Growth Is Moving Into Leverage Since the S&P 500’s October 2022 low, ETF assets have risen more than 250%. Assets in ETFs using derivatives are up more than 450%. Issuers launched 3,363 new ETFs, and more than 30% of this year’s launches use leverage, according to VettaFi. The shift is also pulling money from traditional vehicles. Equity ETFs attracted $3.2 trillion, while equity mutual funds lost $3.3 trillion. Money market fund assets rose 74%, or $3.4 trillion. The product expansion now reaches private companies. 21shares listed CLAU in Vienna, billed as Europe’s first ETP offering exposure to Anthropic’s implied pre-IPO valuation. ✔️ @venture

🤖 AI Boom Starts Spreading Inflation Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee says the AI boom is becoming an inflation problem. Price pressure is spreading beyond data center components and adjacent industries. Illinois businesses report scarce electricians, higher construction costs, and year-long waits for electrical components as data centers compete for the same resources. Land, power, water, and infrastructure costs tied to AI campuses have also risen sharply. Goolsbee is increasingly concerned this reflects overheating demand, not a temporary supply shock. If inflation stays persistent, another rate hike later this month remains possible, reinforcing the higher-for-longer pressure already weighing on banks and long-duration tech. ✔️ @venture