Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter:
🚀 SpaceX revenue jumps 92% to $7.8B
☁️ Anthropic signs $10B cloud deal with Volta
📊 Bending Spoons to buy Airtable for $1.28B
🇺🇸 Trump drafts ban on Chinese data center parts
📉 AMD stock falls 9% despite 50% revenue jump
🛢️ US and Iran near strait of Hormuz deal
Plus: 🌍 10 macro news, 🏢 10 corporate news, 💰 7 deal flow, and 📑 6 research & reports.
| 🚀 SpaceX revenue jumps 92% to $7.8B LINK |
- SpaceX reported second-quarter revenue of $7.8 billion, up 92% and nearly $1 billion above Wall Street's roughly $6.9 billion estimate, in its first earnings report since debuting on the Nasdaq in June.
- The company narrowed its net loss to $541 million, or 9 cents a share, from $1 billion a year earlier, while adjusted EBITDA nearly tripled to $3.5 billion, helped by Starlink subscribers doubling and its AI segment turning profitable.
- The results follow a roughly 50% slide from the stock's post-IPO peak of $211, and the earnings release triggers a lockup that lets pre-IPO holders start selling, with about 900 million more shares unlocking after third-quarter results.
| ☁️ Anthropic signs $10B cloud deal with Volta LINK |
- Anthropic has signed a six-year, $10 billion compute deal with Volta Infra Holdings, securing 121 megawatts of Nvidia Vera Rubin capacity at a hydropower-fed data center site in Tydal, Norway.
- The deal lifted shares of Bitdeer, the Nasdaq-listed crypto miner and site landlord, as much as 23% before settling about 10% higher, on a 16-year lease worth roughly $4.7 billion that Bitdeer expects to run at near-90% operating margins.
- Volta's payments to Bitdeer are backed by about $1.3 billion in standby letters of credit from J.P. Morgan affiliates and another global institution, a structure the article compares to Alphabet's $43.8 billion in lease guarantees across its chip ecosystem.
| 📊 Bending Spoons to buy Airtable for $1.28B LINK |
- Bending Spoons, in its first deal since going public last month, agreed to buy spreadsheet-and-database maker Airtable for $1.28 billion in cash, a steep markdown from the startup's $11 billion-plus peak valuation in 2021.
- Factoring in Airtable's cash on hand, the deal values the company at about $2.25 billion, still below the $4 billion its shares fetched on private secondary markets earlier this year and its $1.4 billion in total funding raised.
- Airtable, serving over 500,000 organizations, brings recurring annual revenue of roughly $480 million as of June 2026, up over 20% year-on-year, fitting Bending Spoons' playbook of buying discounted firms, cutting staff and running them profitably.
| 🇺🇸 Trump drafts ban on Chinese data center parts LINK |
- The Trump administration is drafting rules to blacklist Chinese-made components from US data-center construction, with the FCC planning to bar new imports of Chinese optical transceivers, the devices that move data over fiber-optic cables inside those facilities.
- The curbs would disproportionately hit China's Zhongji Innolight, flagged by the Pentagon in June for military ties and holding roughly 27% of the global data-center transceiver market, while US makers Coherent and Lumentum stand to gain despite lacking the capacity to meet demand.
- Beijing has warned it will take "all necessary measures" if harmed and could retaliate through its grip on rare-earth minerals that Western manufacturers struggle to source elsewhere, extending a tit-for-tat tech standoff into a parallel fight over Chinese open-weight AI models.
| 📉 AMD stock falls 9% despite 50% revenue jump LINK |
- AMD fell nearly 9% in after-hours trading despite second-quarter revenue jumping 50% year-on-year to $11.54 billion, as investors reacted to guidance that came in below the most bullish expectations.
- The beat was driven by AMD's Data Center unit, where revenue rose 107% to $6.7 billion on strong sales of processors and AI chips, with adjusted profit of $1.66 per share topping the $1.62 estimate.
- AMD guided to roughly $13 billion in current-quarter revenue, above the $12.52 billion consensus, but some analysts had hoped for as much as $14 billion, and the sell-off suggests investors wanted a stronger outlook.
| 🛢️ US and Iran near strait of Hormuz deal LINK |
- The US and Iran are close to a deal, possibly by Tuesday or Wednesday, to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial ships without tolls, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a CNBC interview.
- US crude oil futures fell about 3% to below $78 a barrel after Bessent's remarks, and he said prices should drop further once hundreds of ships stranded in the Persian Gulf can finally exit.
- Bessent flagged a broad "relief trade" beyond energy, saying fertilizer, refined products and industrial gases could also cheapen, though prior efforts collapsed after a June 17 agreement broke down over which route ships could use.
🌍 Macro News
- Trump administration nears AI safety review, but only for closed models. LINK
- Generative AI is eroding outsourcing growth in India and the Philippines. LINK
- India's central bank held rates steady at 5.25% for fifth meeting. LINK
- Fed Chair Warsh to scale back rate guidance, worrying Goldman Sachs. LINK
- Bernstein warns crypto could drop sharply if Senate stalls CLARITY Act. LINK
- EU's MiCA framework now licenses 321 crypto firms after latest update. LINK
- Copper nears $14,000 a ton as US imports drain global supply. LINK
- Europe's Stoxx 600 hit a record close, up 10% for 2026. LINK
- China's services growth slowed to a 10-month low in July. LINK
- US and UK regulators aligned support for stablecoins and tokenization. LINK
🏢 Corporate News
- Saudi-led group completes $55 billion buyout of Electronic Arts. LINK
- Spotify surpassed 300 million paid subscribers in the second quarter. LINK
- OpenAI to pay $3.2 million over hiring discrimination allegations. LINK
- Texas orders audits of new data centers, threatening its tech hub status. LINK
- Wells Fargo joins rivals in launching blockchain-based tokenized deposits. LINK
- Western Union launches Stablecard, a dollar-stablecoin wallet and Visa card. LINK
- BP's quarterly profit more than doubled, beating analyst expectations. LINK
- Apple seeks emergency order barring OpenAI from using alleged trade secrets. LINK
- BNY partners with Galaxy to offer institutional crypto staking rewards. LINK
- McDonald's shares rose after strong earnings and new US president pick. LINK
📈 Stocks
💰 Deal Flow
- Walmart closes purchase of streaming ad platform Vibe.co. LINK
- HappyRobot raised $150 million at a $1.2 billion valuation for AI logistics agents. LINK
- Quantifind raised $200 million to expand financial-crime detection technology. LINK
- Moove raised $250 million to expand its autonomous vehicle infrastructure. LINK
- Deel acquires deepfake-detection startup Clarity for up to $50 million. LINK
- Fed approves Santander's $12.3 billion acquisition of Webster Financial. LINK
- Telesat wins $2.3 billion contract for Arctic military satellite communications. LINK
📑 Research & Reports
- Deutsche Bank cites Wicksell theory to explain investor demand for US debt. LINK
- European tech firms SAP, Capgemini and others gain from AI deployment boom. LINK
- HSBC sees $25 billion inflow potential if funds turn neutral on India. LINK
- Italy's central bank finds stablecoins offer no advantage over remittances. LINK
- Bank of America raised its 2027 global cloud spending forecast to $1.18 trillion. LINK
- UBS warns food inflation will stay elevated for years to come. LINK