Howard Lutnick wants the U.S. government to get a cut of university patent revenue, or even commercial revenue derived from those patents, he tells Axios' Mike Allen on tomorrow's premier episode of "The Axios Show."

Why it matters: This could disrupt the startup ecosystem, particularly in biotech.

What Lutnick said: "I think universities, who are getting all this money. The scientists get the patents, the universities get the patents and the funder of $50 billion, the U.S. government, you know what we get? Zero."

• "The U.S. government gives someone $50 million and let's say they invent a drug, a patent, the drug, and it's worth $50 million," he continued. "Why did they make the 50 and we lost 50? We should get our money back and participate."
• "Then what'll happen is our Social Security system will be paid for and we won't be a broke country running $2 trillion deficits."
• Lutnick adds that he sent Harvard a letter to this effect last week, but the school didn't respond to Axios' request for comment. He also plans to send letters to "the California system" this week.

What to know: Lots of VC-backed startups have their roots in government-funded academic research, and sometimes pay universities to license patents.

• But the amounts tend to be relatively small (i.e., not nearly enough to solve Social Security's solvency issues).
• For example, Harvard University received just $54 million in commercialization revenue for fiscal 2024, down from $107 million during fiscal 2024. And that's for all of its labs, not just those receiving grants from the NIH or other federal sources.
• Moreover, Harvard and other schools tend to reinvest that money into research.

Zoom in: The Commerce Department isn't clarifying if Lutnick meant that the U.S. government should receive actual equity stakes in startups, or other companies commercializing such patents.

• If so, it would change the math for venture capitalists whose money is required to move those ideas from the lab to the market. A possible chilling effect.

The bottom line: Every White House wants a return on its investments. Usually, however, it's in the form of improving national health or national security — taxpayer dollars benefiting taxpayers.

• For Lutnick and others in Trump 2.0, it's more about the actual dollars.

Klarna, a Swedish buy-now-pay-later company, raised $1.37 billion in its IPO that priced above its anticipated range.

Why it's the BFD: We're in the midst of what's expected to be the busiest week for U.S. IPOs since 2021, and Klarna is by far the largest offering.

By the numbers: Klarna priced 34.3 million shares (85% secondary) at $40 per share, after having set a $35-$37 range. Its initial valuation is around $15.2 billion.

• It had been valued at more than $46 billion by VCs in 2021, but one year later raised at just $6.7 billion.

Cap table: The company had raised over $4b from firms like Sequoia Capital, Heartland, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Silver Lake, GIC, HMI Capital, Mubadala, UBS, Skandia, Atomico, Ant Group, Harvest Growth Capital, and IVP.

The bottom line: Klarna began life as a pure-play BNPL, but is seeking to become more of a full-service digital bank.

• PsiQuantum, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based developer of quantum computers, raised $1b in Series E funding at a $7b valuation. BlackRock, Temasek, and Baillie Gifford led, joined by Macquarie Capital, Ribbit Capital, NVentures, Adage Capital Management, Qatar Investment Authority, Type One Ventures, Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), 1789 Capital, S Ventures and insiders Blackbird, Third Point Ventures, and T. Rowe Price. axios.link/4me2fNo