AnalytixInsight

This past week was notably busy in Canadian capital markets, witnessing lots of activity in VC and, public markets funding as well as M&A. Long time Canadian software behemoth, Open Text announced a US$1 billion debt financing, and a nearly half a billion US$ acquisition. Satellite communications company Telesat filed to go public on the TSX. Moving to small cap stocks, EMERGE (ECOM-TSXV) announced the refinancing of a term loan and upsizing of its credit facility to $25 million. Sophic Client UGE International (UGE-TSXV) announced the closing of a $2 million Convertible Debenture offering. SoftBank announces a US$8.8 billion share buyback after losses on Didi and Coupang. Sweetgreen’s IPO filing suggests tech enabled businesses could be valued at ~7-9x sales. Elon Musk sold US$5 billion in Tesla stock, but he made plans weeks before asking his Twitter followers whether he should sell 10% of his shares. Apple supplier Foxconn, forecast on Friday that a global chip shortage would run into the second half of 2022 and Sony cut its PlayStation 5 production on chips shortage. During an interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he owns cryptocurrency, and Apple ‘looking’ to add it for Apple Pay.

Last week saw a few high profile exits and an IPO delay in Canada. Ecobee is being acquired by US-based Generac for US$770 million. Quebec City-based artificial intelligence retail tech startup, Coveo filed to go public on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker ‘CVO’. Montréal-based Sharethrough has postponed its IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Sophic Client, GameSquare Esports (GSQ-CSE, Sophic Client) received mention in the Washington Post, referencing streamer TimTheTatman joining its Complexity unit. In the USA, Rivian plans to sell a portion of its US$60 billion IPO directly to SoFi users. Cloud software firm HashiCorp filed to go public and Cloud-based expense management software maker Expensify plans to raise up to US$242.5 million in an IPO. Zillow now looks to sell 7,000 homes for US$2.8 billion, and Cathie Wood’s Ark sold 3.9 million shares of Zillow on Wednesday as the company’s exit from home-flipping sent shares plunging. The US House passed a more than US$1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill late Friday. The Senate approved the revamp of transportation, utilities and broadband in August. Lastly, the global chip shortage ‘is far from over’ as wait times get longer.

We got additional colour last week around D2L and Hootsuite going public in the coming months — Canadian tech companies who’ve long been speculated to go public for a number of years. Voyager Digital (VOYG-TSX) secured a $75 million strategic investment from Alameda Research, and Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks said they’ll give US$100 in bitcoin to people who download the Voyager Digital app this week. Shopify (SHOP-NYSE, SHOP-TSX) announced partnerships with Microsoft and Mailchimp. Sophic Client, Clear Blue Technologies (CBLU-TSXV, CBUTF-OTC, 0YA-FRA), closed a convertible debenture financing for $1.5 million. We published our second CEO interview with Sophic Client, HempFusion (CBD.U-TSXV). Toronto tech startups once again broke venture funding records, raising over $1.6 billion through 53 deals in Q3 2021. Per Hockeystick and briefed.in data, Toronto tech funding has soared to a new record in every quarter of 2021 so far. Outside Canada, GlobalFoundries and major shareholder Mubadala Investment Co. raised almost US$2.6 billion in an initial public offering, pricing the chipmaker’s shares at the top of a marketed range. Paytm seeks US$20 billion valuation in India’s biggest IPO. FaZe Clan to go public through acquisition by SPAC, valuing company at US$1 billion. Mastercard will allow US banks and millions of merchants to integrate crypto into their products, via a partnership with Bakkt, a digital asset platform. Shares of Bakkt soared as much as 94% to US$17.71 before paring the rise to 78%. In the semiconductor space, while Apple lost US$6 billion to chip shortages and manufacturing delays in Q4, Samsung reported record quarterly revenue on strong chip demand.