AnalytixInsight

SUMMARY: After a few weeks of public markets volatility dampened new public company transactions, last week saw a bit of an uptick. Nuvei (MEI-NASDAQ, NVEI-TSX) closed an upsized US$425 million initial public offering in the United States. Quarterhill (QTRH-TSX) announced the filing of a preliminary $200 million base shelf prospectus. Dye & Durham (DND-TSX) announced a recapitalization of its credit facilities totalling $1.8 billion, ending a strategic review process that commenced in May. Q4 Inc. announced the resumption of plans to go public on the TSX. At Sophic, we published a piece on Clear Blue Technologies’ (Sophic Client, CBLU-TSXV, CBUTF-OTC, 0YA-FRA) core business of providing clean, wireless power solutions serving the multi-billion dollar off-grid market. In the USA, there was positive movement towards public markets debuts by Rent the Runway, Udemy, GlobalFoundries, AvidXchange, HireRight, GitLab and Genesys. Year-to-date, penny stock trading volume hit a record US$548 billion, soaring past 2020 totals as retail investors poured into the market. NFT sales surged to US$10.7 billion in Q3 .Snapchat and Telegram benefited from Facebook’s long outage.

Last week, more than $2-billion was shaved off Lightspeed’s (LSPD-NYSE, LSPD-TSX) market cap in response to a short-seller report. Fintech Propel filed a preliminary prospectus for an IPO. Sophic client, HIRE Technologies (HIRE-TSXV) strengthened its balance sheet by closing a $2.8 million second tranche non-brokered private placement for a total of $4.8 million oversubscribed financing. The company has been growing at higher than market growth rates, a stronger balance sheet should help the company accelerate growth. Canadian tech talent scored another win as Stripe announced its first Canadian office in Toronto. In light of recent market turbulence Allvue Systems postponed its IPO in the USA. However, on Friday, electric vehicle maker Rivian filed for its IPO. Earlier in the week, EV company Polestar announced it would merge with Gores Guggenheim SPAC in a US$20 billion deal. Amazon unveiled a new robot, updated devices, and also revealed it was expanding into the fitness market, putting itself in competition with Apple more directly. TikTok reached 1 billion monthly active users, and also made its first foray into NFTs. The Fed has ‘no intention’ to ban cryptocurrencies, Jerome Powell told Congress. At Sophic Capital, we published notes on GameSquare Esports (GSQ-CSE) as Esports influencer TimTheTatman recently announced that he would join Complexity Gaming and GameSquare Esports and Body and Mind Inc. (BAMM-CSE, BMMJ-OTC), which has a strong brand presence in Nevada and could benefit in that state.