Fractional (Lack-of) Talent

SF got Punk'd

Author

Dan Entrup
July 08, 2025

Since last post we’ve seen 8 acquisitions (1 hat trick), 4 funding rounds ($106.1M raised), 10 people moves & promotions, 7 roles ($176K average salary), 3 new firm launches, 2 articles, 1 podcast, and 3 newly added upcoming events.

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[INSERT] Of The Week

An overview where I highlight an activity from each major section

Deal - Delinian divested Airfinance Global (AFG), an aviation finance intelligence provider. As part of the transaction, AFG is merging with Ishka, another aviation finance data and market intelligence provider, in a transaction backed by Foundation Investment Partners. This is the 7th divestiture by Delinian (formerly Euromoney Institutional Investor) in the past 12 months. Prior divestitures include Insurance Insider to ECI, Information Management Network (IMN) to Informa, IJGlobal to Green Street, Legal Benchmarking Group to Triple Private Equity, Invisso to FT Group, and The Deal to With Intelligence.

Funding Round - GetWhy, a Copenhagen based AI-powered consumer research company raised €17M in a Series A extension led by PeakSpan Capital. GetWhy uses AI to extract insights from video interviews, delivering qualitative consumer insights in hours. The extension brings total funding to $73.9M. The company was founded in 2017 and is led by CEO Casper Henningsen (prior Kunde & Co.).

People Move - Kris Joshi joined Norstella as CEO. Norstella is a life sciences data company with brands including Citeline, Evaluate, MMIT, Panalgo, and The Dedham Group. The company is backed by leading information services investors, Hg Capital, WCAS, and Warburg Pincus. Prior to joining Kris was most recently CEO - Software, Network, Data at Optum, EVP at Change Healthcare, and Global VP of Health Sciences at Oracle.

Job - Rally is hiring a Customer Success Manager. Rally provides a User Research CRM, automated recruitment, and integrations into the existing ResTech stack. In June 2025, the company announced a $11M Series A led by Canapi Ventures. Rally was founded by Oren Friedman (prior Remesh, AlphaSights) and Alec Robins (prior Facebook, HubSpot).

M&A

Check out the It’s Pronounced Data Deal Tracker for full M&A and funding rounds.

*Deals are announced but may not be closed.

Funding

  • Cred (AI-powered predictive intelligence) raised $15M in a Seed round led by defy.vc.

  • GetWhy (AI-powered consumer research) raised €17M in a Series A extension led by PeakSpan Capital.

  • Icogz (analytics and intelligence platform) raised $1.4M in a Pre-Seed.

  • Savvy Wealth (wealth management platform) raised $72M in a Series B led by Industry Ventures.

People Moves, Promotions, and Appointments

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*New Firm Alerts*

Altaline Capital Management is a specialist growth-focused private equity firm focused on business in the tech, business services, and financial services sectors. The firm is headquartered in Los Angeles and is led by Managing Directors Ian Balmaseda (prior H.I.G. Capital, The Riverside Company) and Rafael Telahun (prior TA Associates, CVC Capital Partners). Check out more on the launch in the press release here.

Epicenter Capital is a public markets investment firm focused on investing in companies that can 10x in 10 years. The firm is led by Managing Partner Rahul Kishore (prior Coatue), with Ivan Ting (prior Coatue) as CFO & COO and Jackson Dibble (prior Sumeru Equity Partners, BCG) as an Investor. Check out more in the launch announcement here.

Winterbird Partners is a private equity firm focused on high-growth, founder-led, B2B technology and services companies in the lower middle market. The firm is led by Eric Ahlgren (prior BV Investment Partners, Great Hill Partners). Check our more in the launch announcement here.

Who’s Hiring

Check out the It’s Pronounced Data job board for full listings. This week’s additions are below.

*salaries only listed where provided by the company and may vary based on location and other factors. See links for specific salary details.

What I’m Reading

What I’m Listening To

Upcoming Events

*new events added since last newsletter

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