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After a rough Tuesday, and a week full of earnings releases, the markets closed the week up. Dow Jones rose 0.9%, so did S&P 500, Nasdaq was up 1.3%. Meta’s Q1 revenue increased 3% as ad business slowly recovers, sending the stock surging after hours. Roku reported flat Q1 revenue, and expects the weak ad market to persist. Intel reported a 36% sales decline, and expects a second half rebound. Sales at Amazon’s cloud computing business grew 16% in the first quarter, the lowest year-over-year growth rate since it started breaking out that segment. Microsoft’s US$68.7 billion Activision takeover has been blocked by UK competition regulator. Apple won its appeal in the App Store legal battle with Epic Games: In one of the most significant battery breakthroughs in recent years, the world’s largest battery manufacturer CATL has announced a new “condensed” battery with 500 Wh/kg which it says will go into mass production this year. Sophic Clients, Kraken Robotics (PNG-TSXV, KRKNF-OTC), OneSoft Solutions Inc . (OSS-TSXV, OSSIF-OTC), and UGE International (UGE-TSXV, UGEIF-OTC) presented at the Planet MicroCap Showcase in Las Vegas this past week, their presentations are available to rewatch in this post. UGE International achieved a notice to proceed milestone for 2.7MW community solar project in Oakland, Maryland. UGE has reached NTP on 12.7MW of projects and commercial operation on 1.4MW of projects so far this year. Sophic Client Clear Blue Technologies announced 2022 financial results. The Company does not need to raise capital, expects to be EBITDA positive by FYE2023, and significant order intake year to date of $3.5M, of which $3.2M to be realized in 2023. Sophic Client LuckBox (LUCK-TSXV, LUKEF-OTC) filed 2022 results. 2022 set the foundation for 2023 player and global betting handle growth, both of which were up significantly following Q4 2022. University of Toronto, and Université de Montréal got a combined $325 million as part of $1.4 billion federal investment into university innovation. Smart display company E2ip Technologies raised $120 million. Ontario Teachers fund to steer clear of crypto after US$95 million FTX loss.

The sideways chop in the markets continued last week, Dow Jones lost 0.2%, S&P 500 fell 0.1%, Nasdaq composite was down 0.4%. Market breadth remains poor, and most investors we speak with remain on the sidelines as they expect that in the near term, either breadth will increase, or indexes will pull back and remain range bound. Event ticketing company SeatGeek filed confidentially to go public. Silver Lake will acquire Germany’s Software AG for €30 a share (50% premium to Friday’s close). Lululemon is exploring a sale of Mirror fitness unit it bought in 2020. Meta begins its next round of layoffs. Lyft is planning a round of layoffs. AI is coming soon to Google Search with ‘Magi’ as Samsung considers making Bing the default search engine on its devices. Google’s big AI push will combine Brain and DeepMind into one team. Elon Musk is planning an artificial intelligence start-up to rival OpenAI. SpaceX’s 400-foot Starship rocket exploded during its inaugural launch. Apple launches high-interest savings accounts with Goldman. Kroger is now rolling out Apple Pay support to stores across the United States. TSMC seeks up to US$15 billion from U.S. for chip plants but objects to conditions. The US Energy department commits US$3 billion to expand rooftop solar access. Under the deal, Sunnova will devote a portion of the lending to homeowners with below-average credit scores and to Puerto Rico. In Canada, last week saw some interesting VC funding announcements. Miovision purchased fellow traffic management company Global Traffic Technologies (GTT) in a deal valued at US$107 million. The acquisition is backed by a recent $260 million investment from various investors. Sophic Client Kraken Robotics, announced orders totaling $7 million. Sixteen projects under Canada’s Ocean Supercluster (OSC) will see $52 million in funding flow towards them, including Kraken Robotics. Sophic Client Legend Power’s next generation SmartGATE more than doubled the product’s previous generation’s financial benefit across initial 30 installations.

The stock market was mixed last week, Dow Jones rose 0.6%, S&P 500 fell 0.1%, and Nasdaq fell 1.1%, even as the 10-year US Treasury yield tumbled 22 basis points to 3.28%, a seven-month low. Global startups raised US$76 billion in the first quarter—a figure that includes US$10 billion raised by OpenAI and US$6.5 billion raised by Stripe—a steep decline from the same period last year. Instacart boosted its valuation 18%, mirroring stock market bounce. Marketing software company Klaviyo has hired bankers and is targeting a public debut as early as this fal. C3.ai plunged 26% after a short-seller said the buzzy AI company has ‘serious accounting and disclosure issues’. The world’s largest AI fund, the Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF to a stronger start in 2023 than even the red-hot Nasdaq 100. Google’s CEO said Chatbot feature is coming to search. Ahead of Apple’s US$3k headset, only 4% of teens who own a VR device actually use it. Walmart is building a nationwide electric vehicle fast charging network. Tesla’s cut prices in the US yet again, this time by as much as US$5,000. In Canada, Vancouver-based Web3 startup LayerZero Labs is now valued at $3 billion after closing a $120 million Series B funding round. WonderFi, Coinsquare, and CoinSmart will merge as Canada’s crypto industry consolidates. Sophic Client, Jasper Commerce closed a second and final tranche of a Convertible Debenture unit financing, raising a total of $900,000 from insiders and a new institutional investor. Sophic Client UGE reported fiscal year 2022 financial results, and on the earnings call, highlighted positive expected balance sheet milestones. Sophic Client LuckBox announced strong March KPIs & record Q1, as March Global Betting Handle was $5.0 million, up from February’s record $2.8 million, and the registered player base reached 387,000. Sophic Client Swarmio Media, introduced a new payment solution, to drive accretive revenue growth. The company and etisalat by e& (largest telecom operator in the MENA region) also launched a promotional campaign for gamers in the Arena esports platform.

After a in uninspiring start, the markets made a bullish turn in the second half of the week. Dow Jones was up 3.2%, S&P 500 rose 3.5%, and Nasdaq was up 3.4%. Twitter was recently valued at US$20 billion in a new employee stock grant, even as Fidelity marked down its stake in Twitter by another 7.9%, bringing its total writedown on its stake since its acquisition to 63.5%. Disney cut its metaverse division as part of a broader restructuring. EA is laying off 6 percent of its workers. Alibaba stock jumped 10% as the Chinese tech giant begins its biggest reorganization ever and eyes new IPOs. Alphabet’s DeepMind and Google Brain set aside rivalry, and target OpenAI. Microsoft now claims GPT-4 shows ‘sparks’ of general intelligence. Bill Gates says self-driving cars will be as revolutionary as the PC after riding in one. Apple reportedly demoed mixed-reality headset to executives in the Steve Jobs Theater last week, even as mass production was reportedly pushed to Q3 2023. Netflix appears to be working to bring games to TVs with the iPhone as a controller. Meta Platforms will allow European users to opt out of personalized advertising on Facebook and Instagram after the European regulators in January fined Meta 390 million Euros for unlawfully forcing users to consent to personalized ads in its apps. Bitcoin has stormed to a 72% gain over the last three months and is on track for its strongest quarter in two years. The token has outperformed both the Nasdaq 100 and gold, which are up 15% and 9%, respectively, in the same stretch. In Canada, Sophic Clients, UGE and Jasper, both plan on closing second tranches of their previously announced financings in the coming weeks, with Jasper announcing an increase of the offering to $900,000 from $750,000. UGE’s Green Bonds’, which mature on June 30, 2027, and bear interest at a rate of 9% per annum, payable semi-annually, second tranche is expected to close by the end of April 2023.