AnalytixInsight

The New York Times published an interesting piece about Toronto’s booming tech sector last week. Toronto is now the third-largest tech hub in North America. It is home to more tech workers than Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and Washington, D.C., trailing only New York and Silicon Valley, according to CBRE, a real estate company that tracks tech hiring. Interestingly, last week, we counted ~$150 million of activity in the Canadian VC ecosystem, against a backdrop of high public market volatility. SoftBank seeking US$60 billion valuation for Arm, which would imply a far higher multiple of Arm’s revenue and profits than is common in the chip sector. GoTo Group, an Indonesian startup giant, raised about US$1.1 billion in one of the world’s largest initial public offerings announced since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Private-equity firm Thoma Bravo LP has struck a deal to buy Anaplan Inc. for $10.7 billion, the latest in a recent string of big leveraged buyouts. Instacart Inc., a pandemic darling that’s now facing decelerating growth, is slashing its valuation by almost 40% to about US$24 billion, a move it says will help the company attract talent and adapt to market conditions. Uber stock gains after company strikes partnership with NYC taxis. Nikola stock price soars after it begins production on electric truck. Adobe slumps 11% as the software maker says halting sales in Russia will reduce yearly revenue. Shares of Okta dropped more than 7% Tuesday following reports of a data breach. Famed short-seller Jim Chanos revealed he’s betting against crypto exchange Coinbase. “Coinbase is what we would call a bubble stock,” he told CNBC’s Scott Waper on Friday. Late Thursday night in Brussels European lawmakers reached a tentative agreement after nearly two years of negotiations on rules restricting certain business practices of Google, Apple, Meta Platforms, Amazon, Microsoft and other tech companies. Nvidia is exploring using Intel’s manufacturing services.

With US$150 million in fresh funding, Montréal’s Talent.com is ready to take on Indeed worldwide. Calgary based, Oil and gas tech startup, Validere closes $55 million funding with BlackRock backing. Sophic Client, Edge Total Intelligence’s (CTRL-TSXV) CEO Jim Barrett, recently presented at the Investor Summit Q1 2022. Indonesian startup GoTo will raise up to US$1.1 billion in its IPO. SoftBank-backed Indian hotel startup Oyo is mulling a smaller IPO. GM is buying out Softbank’s stake in autonomous vehicle unit Cruise. SoftBank’s Arm will lay off up to 15% as it prepares for an IPO after Nvidia deal collapse. ConsenSys, the New York company operating a suite of blockchain products including popular crypto wallet MetaMask, raised US$450 million in a Series D funding round, that valued the company at more than US$7 billion, which included the new investment. Shenzhen iPhone production was forced to shutdown at two Foxconn facilities due to a new COVID-19 outbreak – but has now partially restarted. China is forcing Alibaba and Tencent to cut over 50,000 jobs. Tencent could be fined for anti-money laundering violations. Mark Zuckerberg said NFTs are coming to Instagram soon. US Lawmakers introduce bill that would let Nvidia, Qualcomm share in U.S. chip subsidies. Intel is building a new €17 billion semiconductor manufacturing hub in Germany.

In light of ongoing market volatility, last week was unsurprisingly quiet in Canadian public markets. That said, Portage Ventures closed $788.5 million for its third FinTech fund, which could now be one of the largest early-stage FinTech-focused venture funds in the world. A recent Washington Post piece called out some unsavory behavior by esports organizations, however, public traded companies that are involved in esports, such as Enthusiast Gaming (EGLX-TSX) and GameSquare Esports (Sophic Client, GSQ-CSE), have long had policies that address and curtail these issues. Sophic Client, Clear Blue Technologies’ (CBLU-TSXV) CEO recently returned from overseas customer, prospect, and investor meetings where conversations increasingly focused on how Clear Blue’s renewable, solar power solutions can resolve these issues. Investors seeking exposure to this secular theme should consider Clear Blue Technologies. In the US, Fidelity, T. Rowe mark down their Instacart stake by up to 18%, in light of ongoing market turbulence, we would not be surprised to see additional mark downs in private VC backed companies’ valuations. Amazon announced a US$10 billion share buyback, 20-for-1 stock split, sending the stock up 6% after hours on the announcement. WeWork reports 7.8% increase in revenue for Q4, however some investors question if the company will need to raise capital in H2 2022. Intel’s Mobileye self-driving unit ‘confidentially’ files for IPO. Uber issued an upbeat outlook for the first quarter, declaring in a securities filing that its ride hailing business was “bouncing back from Omicron much faster than we expected.” Rivian stock fell by more than 14% after hours Thursday after the electric vehicle maker said supply chain snags would hinder production this year and indicated it still had a long way to go to deliver on a much-hyped partnership with Amazon. The ‘Jedi Blue’ ad deal between Google and Facebook sparked new Antitrust probes in EU and UK.