Raison Venture Digest

Kraken

Deutsche Börse Investment

German exchange operator Deutsche Börse has invested $200M in Payward Inc., the parent company of Kraken. The entry of a major European infrastructure player into the exchange’s capital is an important signal for the market ahead of a potential IPO. The deal highlights growing interest from traditional financial institutions in regulated crypto platforms.

Bitnomial Acquisition: Expansion into Regulated Derivatives

Payward is acquiring the Bitnomial exchange for $550M. The deal provides Payward and Kraken with a unique technology stack and a full set of licenses to launch regulated futures and options trading in the US. Unlike legacy banking systems, Bitnomial’s infrastructure was built natively for digital assets, enabling Kraken to offer US clients a fully integrated financial ecosystem within a single interface.

Tax Record as a Scale Indicator

In 2025, Kraken processed a record 56M tax forms. Due to the absence of a minimum reporting threshold in the US, even micro-transactions were included — one-third of the forms were for amounts below $1. This created a massive operational burden but also served as a clear indicator of scale: in terms of users and transaction volume, the exchange is already comparable to the largest retail banks, reinforcing its status as a systemically important player.

Cohere

Merger with Aleph Alpha: A Bet on Independence from Big Tech

In early April, Reuters reported on the negotiations, and on the 25th, further details emerged: Canada’s Cohere and Germany’s Aleph Alpha are merging with a clear objective — to build an AI platform independent of US tech giants such as Microsoft and Google. Cohere’s valuation prior to the deal was approximately $7B. Following the merger and a $600M investment from Schwarz Group (Aleph Alpha’s largest shareholder and owner of Lidl and Kaufland), the company is valued at $20B pre-money in a Series E round. Schwarz Group will act as the lead investor.

Their focus on small language models, European languages and tokenizers is a really complementary one to our own, which is more of a general focus on large language models.

Aidan Gomez

Cohere CEO

Anthropic

Final Round Before IPO

Anthropic has opened a window to raise around $50B at a target valuation of $900B, which is above OpenAI’s current valuation of $852B. The deal is expected to close within the next two weeks, and if successful, the company will become the most valuable AI startup in the world.

Annualized revenue already exceeds $30B and, according to some estimates, is approaching $40B. This round is viewed as the last before IPO, with proceeds intended to cover large-scale investments in compute infrastructure.

Despite strong demand, early investors are not rushing to increase their stakes: many prefer to wait for the IPO expected by year-end and realize gains in the public market.

New Phase of Growth Through Partnerships

Anthropic is demonstrating unprecedented market resilience, temporarily declining offers from venture capital funds for rounds at $800B+ valuations. Despite astronomical infrastructure costs, the company maintains its independence by relying on strategic partners:

• Google: plans to invest up to $40B and allocate 5 GW of capacity.
• Amazon: preparing an additional $25B investment.

Such large-scale commitments reinforce expectations of an IPO this year. Expansion into industry verticals is also reflected in the board update: Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan has joined, opening pathways for deep AI integration in drug development.

AI for State-Level Cybersecurity

Anthropic is setting a new standard for interaction between the AI industry and government. Its new model, Mythos Preview, has not been released publicly because it proved too effective at conducting offensive cyber operations — Anthropic has made it available only to a limited group of trusted companies. Even before its release, Mythos’s capabilities were discussed by the US Vice President and the Treasury Secretary.

Despite ongoing legal disputes with the Pentagon, the US National Security Agency (NSA) is already officially using the model for vulnerability detection, reinforcing Anthropic’s position as a key government partner in security.

Focus on a Safe Mass-Market Product

For the broader market, Anthropic introduced Claude Opus 4.7, featuring advanced reasoning capabilities but equipped with strict safeguards against malicious use, unlike the offensive Mythos version. The lineup is complemented by Claude Design, a tool for instant visual content generation, expanding Anthropic’s presence in creative segments.

The company’s technological leadership was also evident at the recent HumanX conference: Claude’s dominance was overwhelming — nearly all discussions centered on Anthropic's products, with minimal attention to ChatGPT.

Control Over Infrastructure Access

Anthropic is radically revising its API economics: access has been restricted for third-party agent applications that exploited consumer unlimited plans. Corporate clients are now transitioned to transparent token-based pricing. At the same time, the company successfully tested its own marketplace for AI agents capable of executing autonomous transactions. For investors, this signals a strategic shift: toward building full-stack infrastructure for autonomous AI workers.

SpaceX

IPO Preparation at $1.75T Valuation

The company is officially on track for a listing at a $1.75T valuation. Insider reports on governance structure confirm that preparations are proceeding on schedule, with Elon Musk retaining control via super-voting shares.

The market is already reacting: Bitget has launched trading of preSPAX tokens on Solana. The emergence of such instruments is a strong indicator of investor confidence in an imminent IPO.

Financial reports show revenue of approximately $18.5B, while a $5B loss is attributed to record capital expenditures on xAI infrastructure. Reuters provides a detailed breakdown of financials and valuation assumptions.

Note: Until official reporting is published, all figures remain estimates.

AI Pivot Through Cursor Acquisition

SpaceX is transforming into an AI infrastructure company: it has signed an agreement with AI startup Cursor, securing an option to acquire it for $60B. The companies have already begun close collaboration on next-generation tools, and Cursor’s CEO confirmed a partnership with SpaceX to scale its flagship Composer model.

This is a strategic move to integrate space infrastructure with advanced neural networks. For investors, the signal is clear: Musk is building an ecosystem where Starlink and AI services form a unified technological foundation.

Chainalysis

A New Transparency Standard for Polymarket

Chainalysis, a leading global IT provider in blockchain investigations and security, has partnered with Polymarket, the largest prediction platform. Using the company’s analytics tools, the platform will detect market manipulation and signs of insider trading in real time.

This is a strategic step toward turning blockchain transparency into a mechanism for investor protection. For Polymarket, it reinforces its position as a trusted platform amid explosive volume growth, while for Chainalysis, it solidifies its role as a key security provider for next-generation markets.

As Chainalysis Co-founder and CEO Jonathan Levin noted:

Blockchain-based markets offer a level of transparency that traditional markets cannot match, and pairing this openness with stronger data tools could raise the bar for market integrity.