AnalytixInsight

Last week, markets had a big shake-up on Thursday, but major indices closed up for the week — Dow Jones rose 1.6%, S&P 500 gained 0.9%, and Nasdaq composite was up 25 bps. That said, with the NASDAQ still stretched, upcoming tech earnings could cause volatility. U.S. venture capital funding surged to US$55.6 billion in Q2, marking the highest quarterly total in two years, largely driven by a few large AI driven rounds. Ticketing app, StubHub has decided to delay its planned summer IPO until after Labor Day. Microsoft and Apple gave up on obtaining OpenAI Board seats amid Antitrust probes. Google ended acquisition discussions with marketing software firm Hubspot. MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, announced a 10-for-1 stock split on Thursday. Electric-vehicle stocks Tesla, Rivian and Lucid showed major signs of life after Q2 deliveries proved to be better than Wall Street estimates. Apple is preparing over 90 million iPhone 16 units for 2024 alone, counting on AI services to fuel demand for its new lineup after a rocky 2023. Hackers broke into AT&T’s systems and stole call and text logs of “nearly all” of its cellular customers, the company said on Friday, blaming a breach of Snowflake’s cloud service for the hack. In Canada, Héroux-Devtek, entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Platinum Equity for $32.50/sh in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $1.35 billion — a 28% premium to the closing share price on July 10, 2024. After reaching US$100 million in revenue, Vena became Canada’s latest “centaur” company. Sophic Client, Xcyte Digital announced the closing of the Webinar asset purchase. During 2023, the assets being acquired generated ~US$2.8 million in revenue and US$615K EBITDA. In our recent report, we look at the market size for cybersecurity and the trends that we believe make this a top investment theme in 2024 and beyond, which bodes well for Sophic Client, Plurilock.

Last week, Dow Jones rose 0.7%, S&P 500 1.95% and Nasdaq composite 3.5%. Alameda-Backed miner, Genesis Digital Assets is weighing a US IPO — GDA traces its roots to one of the earliest crypto mining companies and received over US$1 billion worth of investment from the venture arm of Alameda Research. Northern Data is weighing its AI unit’s IPO at up to a US$16 billion value amidst some valuation controversy. Britain’s Revolut surged to a record profit as it seeks a US$40 billion valuation. SoftBank is discussing with banks how to fund investments of up to US$10 billion in energy-related projects, as artificial intelligence drives an enormous increase in demand for power. Tesla’s vehicle deliveries fell for the second quarter in a row but beat Wall Street’s estimates, sending the electric car maker’s stock up more than 8% to its highest price since January. Apple said on Friday it has approved Epic Games’ games marketplace app on iPhones and iPads in Europe. Amazon founder and executive chair Jeff Bezos plans to sell about US$5 billion worth of his stake in the company, his second major round of share sales this year. A U.S. stock rally supercharged by excitement over artificial intelligence is drawing comparisons with the dotcom bubble two decades ago, raising the question of whether prices have again been inflated by optimism over a revolutionary technology. However, tech stocks are more modestly valued now than at the peak of the dot-com bubble, trading at 31 times forward earnings, compared to as high as 48 times in 2000, according to Datastream. OMERS entered into an agreement to sell medical testing company LifeLabs to Quest Diagnostics for $1.35 billion. Canada enacted a Digital-Services Tax amid risks of a U.S. trade retaliation.