Octopus Ventures' CEO Erin Platts Speaking at London Tech Week
Octopus Ventures CEO Erin Platts says the global venture capital and private equity ecosystem "continue to be constrained." Speaking to Bloomberg TV's Tom Mackenzie on the sidelines of the London Tech Week, Platts noted that stagnation around exits is one of the key areas that is making it difficult for new investments going into founders. (Source: Bloomberg)
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17 minutes ago
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BlackRock, Goldman Scale Up Tax Trades in $3 Trillion SMA Boom
(Bloomberg) -- This year's stock market turbulence has punished ordinary investors. But for the wealthy, it's opened up fresh opportunities to convert equity swings into tax breaks — fueling a growing Wall Street business that turns volatility into a financial advantage. Trump Said He Fired the National Portrait Gallery Director. She's Still There. NYC Mayoral Candidates All Agree on Building More Housing. But Where? Senator Calls for Closing Troubled ICE Detention Facility in New Mexico California Pitches Emergency Loans for LA, Local Transit Systems BlackRock Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley are among firms scaling up a strategy known as tax-loss harvesting, typically offered through customized portfolios called separately managed accounts. When markets drop, managers sell stocks trading below their purchase price to realize losses. Those losses offset gains elsewhere in a portfolio, reducing clients' tax liabilities while maintaining overall portfolio exposure. The approach allows investors to shrink their current-year IRS bills while deferring capital gains into the future. In April's selloff, for example, a manager could dump Home Depot Inc. and rotate into Lowe's Cos Inc., maintaining sector exposure while staying inside tax rules. Once a boutique service reserved only for the ultra-rich, investment firms are repackaging market turbulence as a fiscal opportunity, with automated trading programs scanning portfolios daily as equity conditions shift. With fee pressure eroding revenue in traditional asset management, Wall Street is leaning more heavily on tax-optimization trades to differentiate offerings, retain clients and defend margins in a competitive marketplace. 'There is just inherently going to be more volatility in the system,' said Scott Smith, senior director at industry consultant Cerulli Associates. 'With trade policies, tariffs, taxes, everything is on the table. There is no assumption of what the future looks.' In one particularly active stretch during April's selloff, BlackRock's Aperio, a platform for personalized portfolios, executed more than $18 billion in trades. That generated $700 million in realized losses that can be used to offset taxable gains elsewhere in client portfolios, or so-called tax-loss harvesting. That equated to roughly $5 to $7 in losses realized for every $100 traded that month. 'We monitor daily. We look at losses and high-cash positions. We balance harvesting with managing tracking error,' said Ran Leshem, who oversees BlackRock's separately managed account business, now managing $220 billion. 'Our goal is to be the market leader in SMAs.' Still, even as this year's selling frenzy created opportunities, the equity rebound that followed highlights a trade-off: while the approach can lower future tax bills, it also locks in losses that may prove costly if markets quickly recover, making the ultimate payoff difficult to measure in real time. Regardless, the opportunities are only growing. Direct indexing, where investors hold individual stocks directly rather than through pooled funds, has become the backbone of this tax-optimization machine. With the SMA market expected to grow from $3 trillion to $5 trillion by 2027, firms are layering on increasingly complex techniques to compete, pitched as added-value services. Tax-loss harvesting is only one lever. Advisors also optimize dividend timing, gain deferrals, charitable gifting and jurisdictional overlays in an attempt to juice after-tax portfolio performance. 'Risk management and tax management go hand in hand,' said Monali Vora, global head of wealth investment solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. 'You can't do one without the other.' Aperio's long-short tax-aware strategies, launched in 2023, amplify gross exposure — boosting the number of positions that can generate harvestable losses, while keeping market exposure roughly the same. About 7% of April's realized losses came from these strategies. While still a small share of overall assets, it's part of the firm's expanding business. Managing tracking error, or how closely a portfolio tracks its benchmark, remains a challenge. The IRS wash-sale rule bars investors from buying back the same, or substantially identical, securities over a specified timeframe. Firms navigate these constraints by swapping into correlated securities. Selling Moderna Inc. and buying Pfizer Inc. is straightforward; replacing a giant like Apple Inc. requires more complex substitutes. 'Clients are seeking alpha, downside protection and more tax-loss harvesting potential for both ETF and stock positions,' Leshem said. 'But with that comes the tug of war between harvesting and maintaining tracking error.' At Dimensional Fund Advisors LP, the approach is different. 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That same month, Parametric also introduced an offering with a $25,000 minimum investment, part of a broader push to open direct-indexing features to smaller accounts and widen the client base for tax-managed SMAs. Quant hedge funds such as AQR Capital Management are also in tax-optimization arena, applying long-short structures aimed at maximizing harvestable losses while managing exposure drift. As competition heats up, Goldman Sachs Asset Management is pushing into new customization features to expand its tax-optimized platform, such as introducing capabilities to migrate equity ETFs into SMA portfolios. The firm has also ramped up its engineering staff to scale automation and global execution as tax-optimized services become increasingly industrialized. While tax-loss harvesting can reduce tax bills, research shows the biggest benefits tend to accrue to wealthier investors with large taxable portfolios and steady capital gains to offset. As such, for investors able to access these platforms, the appeal is simple. 'There is an awareness among investors that it's not what you make, it's what you keep,' said Parametric's Lee. 'Taxes represent a headwind for investors to the extent they have to realize gains in taxable accounts. You can take advantage of volatility when it comes.' --With assistance from Justina Lee and Lu Wang. New Grads Join Worst Entry-Level Job Market in Years The SEC Pinned Its Hack on a Few Hapless Day Traders. The Full Story Is Far More Troubling What America's Pizza Economy Is Telling Us About the Real One Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Wants to Donate His Billions—and Walk Again American Mid: Hampton Inn's Good-Enough Formula for World Domination ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Bloomberg
19 minutes ago
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MarketsandMarkets' 360Quadrants Recognizes Top Startups and SMEs in the Urban Air Mobility Quadrant Report 2025
DELRAY BEACH, Fla., June 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- 360Quadrants has released its latest Urban Air Mobility Startups/SMEs Companies Assessment, 2025, recognizing key players, including both global giants and emerging innovators, for their excellence in market presence, product innovation, and business strategy. The report highlights ARC Aero Systems, Urban Aeronautics, Ascendance Flight Technologies, and AIR VEV Ltd., among the top companies, are actively shaping the future of the Urban Air Mobility Startups/SMEs Companies Assessment. The evaluation leverages 360Quadrants' proprietary methodology to map competitive positioning across 7,000+ micro markets within 10+ industries, enabling decision-makers to make strategic, data-backed vendor choices. Company Highlights in the Urban Air Mobility Startups/SMEs Companies Assessment: Arc Aero Systems, a UK-based technology company, specializes in the development of advanced civil aircraft with vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capabilities, aiming to revolutionize urban air mobility (UAM). Committed to creating sustainable and efficient air transportation for urban and regional areas, the company offers a range of innovative aircraft, including the Pegasus, Linx P3, and Linx P9. Arc Aero Systems is driven by a mission to minimize the environmental footprint of air travel through hybrid propulsion technologies. Urban Aeronautics envisions transforming urban mobility through the application of cutting-edge aerospace technologies to develop vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft tailored for complex city environments. By offering a practical and efficient alternative to conventional transportation, the company seeks to redefine how people and critical services move within urban areas. Urban Aeronautics also operates through its wholly owned subsidiary, Tactical Robotics, which leads the development of the Cormorant project. This autonomous VTOL aircraft is designed for combat cargo delivery and medical evacuation missions, sharing technological commonalities with the CityHawk. Together, these innovations reflect the company's commitment to revolutionizing urban transport and emergency response with safe, sustainable, and advanced VTOL solutions. Ascendance Flight Technologies is committed to advancing sustainable aviation through the development of hybrid-electric propulsion systems. The company's flagship aircraft, the Atea, is a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicle designed as a cleaner, quieter, and more efficient alternative to conventional helicopters. Central to Atea's performance is Ascendance's proprietary Sterna hybrid-electric propulsion system, which significantly reduces noise and emissions while extending operational range and efficiency. The company operates across two primary business areas: Aircraft Manufacturing and Propulsion Technology. In aircraft manufacturing, the Atea stands out as a versatile and eco-friendly VTOL aircraft tailored for urban mobility and short regional travel, offering a quieter and safer transport option well-suited to dense urban settings. To explore the full quadrant report and see how companies are positioned in the Urban Air Mobility Startups/SMEs Companies Assessment, 2025, Visit: Evaluation Criteria The vendor evaluation was conducted on over 100 companies, of which the top 11 were categorized and recognized as quadrant leaders. Factors such as revenue, geographic presence, growth strategies, investments, and sales strategies for the market presence of the Urban Air Mobility Startups/Small-Medium Businesses Companies Assessment quadrant. The top criteria for product footprint evaluation included Solution (Infrastructure and platform), Platform architecture (Rotary-wing, fixed-wing hybrid, and fixed-wing), and Mobility Type (Air taxis, air shuttles & air metro, personal air vehicles, cargo air vehicles, and air ambulances & medical emergency vehicles), Mode of Operation (Piloted and autonomous) and Range(intercity (>100 km) and intracity (<100 km)). 360 Quadrants Scoring Methodology 360 Quadrants employs a comprehensive and transparent scoring methodology to evaluate companies. It identifies relevant evaluation criteria, collects and validates data from multiple sources, and employs an algorithm that considers parameter weights to generate scores. Normalization ensures fair comparisons, and the aggregated scores categorize solutions into quadrants such as Progressive companies, Responsive companies, Dynamic companies, and Starting blocks. This unbiased approach equips users with accurate information, empowering them to make well-informed decisions and select solutions that best suit their needs and objectives. Download Free Sample @ About 360Quadrants 360Quadrants, a specialized division of MarketsandMarkets™, delivers comprehensive quadrant analyses for various emerging technologies and markets, including start-ups. Our evaluation methodology hinges on two critical parameters: market presence and product footprint. This approach facilitates a graphical representation of competitive positioning across four key categories: leaders, contenders, innovators, and emerging companies. In addition, we meticulously classify start-ups into progressive companies, responsive companies, dynamic companies, and starting blocks. Our expertise equips organizations with insights into market leaders across over 6000 micro markets, enabling a detailed comparison of vendor capabilities and performance. At 360Quadrants, we ensure that each quadrant adheres to the highest standards, empowering our clients to navigate complex market dynamics precisely and confidently. 360Quadrants has also launched quadrants in fields such as – Drone Detection Startups/SMEs Companies Assessment, 2025, and Drone Communication Startups/SMEs Companies Assessment, 2025. About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets™ has been recognized as one of America's Best Management Consulting Firms by Forbes, as per their recent report. MarketsandMarkets™ is a blue ocean alternative in growth consulting and program management, leveraging a man-machine offering to drive supernormal growth for progressive organizations in the B2B space. With the widest lens on emerging technologies, we are proficient in co-creating supernormal growth for clients across the globe. Today, 80% of Fortune 2000 companies rely on MarketsandMarkets, and 90 of the top 100 companies in each sector trust us to accelerate their revenue growth. With a global clientele of over 13,000 organizations, we help businesses thrive in a disruptive ecosystem. The B2B economy is witnessing the emergence of $25 trillion in new revenue streams that are replacing existing ones within this decade. We work with clients on growth programs, helping them monetize this $25 trillion opportunity through our service lines – TAM Expansion, Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy to Execution, Market Share Gain, Account Enablement, and Thought Leadership Marketing. Built on the 'GIVE Growth' principle, we collaborate with several Forbes Global 2000 B2B companies to keep them future-ready. Our insights and strategies are powered by industry experts, cutting-edge AI, and our Market Intelligence Cloud, KnowledgeStore™, which integrates research and provides ecosystem-wide visibility into revenue shifts. To find out more, visit or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Contact:Ms. Sipti Banga,630 Dundee Road, Suite 430Northbrook, IL 60062USA: +1-888-600-6441Email: Logo: View original content: SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
