STARTUPS

Dominic Carrano

Dominic Carrano was on a “traditional accounting” path when a chance posting at the end of his six years at Deloitte launched his career in biotech, ultimately leading him to Veradermics and its successful IPO in February 2026—one of the best aftermarket performers of the year. Now, Carrano can’t imagine doing anything else.

After a stint at two other biotech companies, Carrano was Veradermics’s fifth employee when he joined the clinical-stage company developing an oral therapy to treat pattern hair loss (PHL) in 2023 as VP of finance. He was named CFO in February 2025.

What was Veradermics’s approach to going public?

Prior to its IPO, it raised a $150 million Series C round in October 2025. Its goals were to “build capital” and attract “strong investors that could support us on a potential public entrance,” Carrano said. “Once we had those two in hand, we ran toward the IPO window.”

The timing factor was that Veradermics wanted to go public before it got Phase 3 clinical trial data, Carrano said. The company considered all its options, but chose to go with a traditional IPO. “We were able to raise a lot of capital, and we felt confident between the investor base and advisors like in the banks and whatnot that the traditional IPO was the right path for us,” he said.

Veradermics had to navigate two government shutdowns during its IPO process.—LB

      

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CAPITAL MARKETS

Morning Brew, Inc. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

CFOs considering issuing equity in the next two months or in 2027 should know they could be competing against a record volume of deals.

This year, US companies are on track to collect $675 billion through equity offerings, beating the record set in 2021 when equity issuance totaled $540 billion, according to an October 9 report from Goldman Sachs.

And Goldman has big expectations for 2027. US corporate equity issuance will likely hit $600 billion next year, including $175 billion in IPOs and $425 billion in “other primary supply” like follow-ons, convertible securities, and SPACs, according to the report.

Companies often raise money by creating and selling new shares through initial public and follow-on offerings. So far in 2026, US entities have collected $431 billion, a 98% increase from 2025.

AI has been a big chunk of follow-on activity. AI-related follow-ons have hit $65 billion so far this year, 45% of US equity follow-on volume, according to Goldman.

Expiring lockups from recent and upcoming IPOs will add to the 2027 supply.—LB

      

AI TOOLS

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Meta, Adobe Stock

Meta’s plushy new homunculus wants to pull up a chair in your office.

As the Muse personal agent/cartoon mascot gains traction among consumers, Meta is also making a play for the crowded enterprise agent market.

Meta has hired former MongoDB CEO Chirantan “CJ” Desai to build out a new enterprise platform, as the company looks to provide services beyond advertising tools. It also announced a new Muse for Small Business tool that will integrate the agent into tools like Box, Figma, and Shopify, among many others. Details are vague right now on what an enterprise platform will look like, but Muse Code and Meta Business Agent will be among the already-existing offerings.

Business leaders and marketers we talked with said Muse shows computer use capabilities beyond those of other agents on the market, and could be more accessible to small and medium-sized businesses that already number among Meta’s advertising customers. But a wider enterprise play also comes with security concerns and wariness about Meta pulling in ever more data.

Meta is trying to bring together its frontier model and existing enterprise relationships, a Forrester analyst told Founder Brew.—PK

      

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market forces

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: 4.6%. That’s how much inventories grew year over year in August, as US businesses built back supplies after several quarters of drawdowns. (Reuters)

Quote: “There continues to be a preservation of credit capacity because there’s still a lot of unknown risk. And if you can find an alternative way to get these projects constructed and financed, then you don’t have to use your balance sheet.”—Alex Wallace, managing director and head of public finance at Flagstar Bank, on how Southern colleges are building more dormitories without raising tuition (Bloomberg)

Read: CFOs faced with serious ethical decisions have a lot in common with Macbeth, one accounting professor writes. (Wall Street Journal)

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