The hydroacylation of vinylarenesw ith acyl fluorides and hydrosilanes was enabled by as ynergistic bimetallic Ni/Cu-catalytic system, giving access to the corresponding branched ketone products. The reaction takes place under mild conditions at 25-80 8Ca nd tolerates base-sensitive functional groups such as methoxycarbonyl and acetoxy groups.Acyl fluorides, which are easily preparedf rom carboxylic acids, [1] are less common as acylatingr eagents than the corresponding chlorides and bromides due to their inertness as acylating reagents under conventional conditions. However,t he use of acyl fluoridesa sr eagents in organic synthesis through activation of the CÀFb ond have attracted growing interest in recent years, offering new types of molecular transformations that have not been achieved with acyl chlorideso rb romides. Generally,t he fluorides show better tolerance towards nucleophilic or basic functional groups than the chlorides and bromides.Apioneering work by Rovis described an efficient ketone synthesis through Ni-catalyzed cross-coupling of acyl fluorides with organozincs( Scheme 1a). [2] Later,O giwaraa nd Sakai reported similart ransformationsu sing organosiliconso r organoborons by Pd catalysis. [3] These reactions were initiated by oxidativea ddition of the acyl C(sp 2 )ÀFb onds to low-valent metal complexes,producing acyl metal intermediates. [4,5] Catalytic in situ generation of nucleophilic organometallic speciesb yi nsertiono fu nsaturated CÀCb onds to MÀXb onds followed by trapping with acyl electrophiles affords attractive synthetic methods, which can avoid the use of stoichiometric amountso fp re-formed organometallic reagents. [6] Metal-catalyzed reductivec ouplingo fC ÀCu nsaturated compounds with electrophiles is representative. [7,8] For acylation,c arboxylic anhydrides were used as acylating electrophiles in the reactiono f vinylarenes in the presence of hydrosilanes or H 2 as H sources. [6a, 7a,b] More recently,G agosz and Riant used acyl fluorides as acylating reagents for the Cu-catalyzed boroacylation of alleneswith bis(pinacolato)diboron (Scheme 1b). [9] Our long-standing interest in synergistic bimetallic catalysis prompted us to explore the possibility of enabling the hydroacylation of vinylarenes with acyl fluorides and hydrosilanes by synergistic Ni/Cu two-metal catalysis. [10][11][12][13][14][15] As shown in Scheme 1c,a na cyl fluoridei sa ctivated through oxidative addition to aN i(0) complex (step a). Concurrently,avinylarene is converted into an ucleophilic alkylcopper speciesb yi nsertion into aC u ÀHs pecies( hydrocupration, step d) [16] that is generated in situ from aC u ÀFs peciesw ith ah ydrosilane (step e). [17] The two catalytic speciesm eet and transmetalation occurs to give the corresponding diorganonickel(II) complex with simultaneous regeneration of the CuÀFs pecies (step b). Finally,r e-[a] Prof. Dr.M.S awamura Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery (WPI-ICReDD)