SpaceX Doubles Revenue, Palantir Surges, and Hormuz Enters Month Six

Capital is plentiful right now, and so is deal flow. What’s rare is proximity.

By that we mean the seat where you can see how a business actually runs before anyone shapes it into a story.

It’s the seat the operator has, and the developer, and the clinician.

This week we curated three companies built to hand you that same view, across industrial safety, Sunbelt multifamily, and medical technology.

In each case, the edge comes from being close enough to see it first.

Welcome back to Startup Deal Desk!

Powered by ThinkFISH

• 🏛️ The Strait of Hormuz has now been shut for roughly six months, with daily transits down from about 130 to under 15 and Brent holding near $84, up 16% since the war began.

• 📈 SpaceX revenue nearly doubled to $7.8B in its first post-IPO print on Anthropic and Google compute deals, but AI costs outweighed the beat and the stock sold off.

• 📈 July payrolls fell 23,000 against forecasts of a gain, yet the reaction was to cut September hike odds to 33%, not to price a cut, with inflation still at 3.3%.

• 🤖 Anthropic signed a $10B compute deal with Volta, a cloud startup six months old that raised $300M alongside it.

• 📈 Palantir’s US commercial revenue rose 149% and the stock jumped 29%, the strongest public proof yet of enterprise AI conversion.

• 🏢 H&R REIT is being taken out in a $6.7B deal backed by Blackstone Real Estate and PSP, handing GO Residential 23 Sunbelt properties and roughly 10,300 suites across Tampa, Dallas, Orlando, Austin, and Charlotte.

Williams Safety & Rescue puts field safety and rescue crews on Gulf Coast refinery, storage, and industrial sites. CEO John Williams has spent 22 yrs on the Houston Fire Department’s hazmat team.

Most safety firms rent their software. Williams built its own. SiteTracks runs observations, permits, lockout/tagout, and compliance tracking from the field, in an industry management estimates is still 90% paper. Two competitor acquisitions, both larger than Williams and both still on paper, sit in SBA underwriting.

Why Investors Are Paying Attention:

• 1,086 consecutive days without a lost-time injury, no OSHA citations in 24 months

• A services business that owns its technology, rare at this size

• Acquiring companies bigger than itself, with the platform ready to deploy

Company LinkedIn | Schedule an intro

39 Capital invests in Class A multifamily development across Texas and the Sunbelt. Co-founder Keaton Lippman came up underwriting a large family-affiliated commercial development portfolio.

The firm does not build, and it does not run a blind pool. It backs established developers, comes in at the start of a project, presents each deal on its own, and co-invests as GP every time. Partners include Pelican Builders, Allen Harrison Company, and D’Agostino Companies.

Why Investors Are Paying Attention:

• Current project is The Mae, 309 units with D’Agostino in Katy, TX (NW Houston)

• Out of the ground, ahead of schedule, under budget on permitting

• Sponsor capital in every deal, with developer selection as the first underwriting call

Company LinkedIn | Schedule an Intro

LeagueMed finances emerging medical innovation with capital from healthcare professionals. Membership is free and opens curated opportunities across devices, diagnostics, and health IT. CEO John Gallagher spent three decades in private markets distribution at Morgan, Grenfell, BofA Securities, and Deutsche Bank.

The bet is that clinicians judge medical technology better than anyone, because they see whether a device works and whether it gets adopted. Every opportunity is screened first, with evaluation led by a 40-yr life sciences veteran.

Why Investors Are Paying Attention:

• Targets rounds too small to hold a large fund’s attention

• Never leads or prices a round, participating alongside investors who set terms

• Securities offered through affiliate League Capital Markets LLC, a FINRA and SIPC member

Company LinkedIn | Schedule an Intro

Look at what each of these three chose to hold onto.

Williams built its own software instead of renting it. 39 Capital puts its own capital into every deal it offers you. LeagueMed does the screening itself, before anything reaches a member.

All of that is work they could have handed off, and yet, they kept it.

It’s also the part that’s hardest to copy.

Worth asking of anything on your desk this week: Who here is closest to the asset, and what are they accountable for?

We help Startups and Funds reach nearly 84,000 angels, VCs, family offices, and entrepreneurs. → Schedule a 1:1 Discovery Call

📝 Join the Deal Desk community. Follow us on LinkedIn and X for more.

Disclaimer: This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or an offer to buy or sell securities. Private investments carry risk, are illiquid, and are intended for accredited investors only. Investments involve the potential loss of principal. Returns, quarterly distributions, and IRRs are estimates and not guaranteed. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always perform your own due diligence before making any investment decisions.