AnalytixInsight

Last week saw a complementary $600 million notes offering by (GIB.A-TSX, GIB-NYSE) following a US$1 billion notes offering the week before. Neo Financial is furthering its push to become a full-stack digital bank: the three-year-old startup closed a $64 million Series B round this summer led by Peter Thiel-backed Valar Ventures, which also led Neo’s Series A financing. We published a piece on Sophic client UGE (UGE-TSXV, UGEIF-OTC) highlighting that the company’s solar project backlog continues to be undervalued compared to mid scale project transactions. The stock is trading at an implied US$0.44/W, which represents about a 43% discount to the average US$0.77/W peer transactions, before accounting for any additional project wins. In the USA, Toast, GitLab, and Forge Global could be some interesting new listings to add to your screens. There was also a fair amount of news in the crypto space, with both bullish and bearish takeaways.

With a major unsecured notes offering announced by CGI (GIB.A-TSX, GIB-NYSE) seeking to raise US$1 billion, and funding for another couple hundred million dollars announced by private VC backed Canadian companies, September is of to a good start by the Canadian innovation sector in capital markets. In addition M&A, remains an active theme, with a major acquisition and exit announced in the space this past week. Stripe is discussing a 2022 public listing, which could be an interesting stock to look out for, as well as Sportradar, which could go public soon. SoftBank announced a Deutsche Telekom share swap deal, and in addition will borrow against its remaining T-Mobile stock, which could aid global VC funding as SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 is trying to invest more in European tech companies. On the regulatory front, a judge just ruled a massive blow against Apple’s App Store business. With a Japanese acquisition, PayPal gains a buy now, pay later (BNPL) service platform, even as some US data suggested credit risk in this segment. In the ESG space, we saw ambitious long term US solar plans, per a NY Times article, which could move the US towards producing almost half of its electricity from the sun by 2050 and a major investment into car battery tech by Toyota.

While this past week was relatively quiet in Canadian public markets, EMERGE Commerce (ECOM-TSXV) announced a $24 million acquisition funded with cash on hand. Consensus expectations call for a busy fall, with regards to “risk-on” driving public capital markets activity in Canada. Private Canadian VC backed companies announced a couple hundred million dollars of funding last week, which appears to be lower than the past few weeks. In the USA, despite lower SPAC activity leading to fewer IPOS in Q2 2021, more companies continue on the path to being public. Last week, Allbirds, Reddit, Samsara, Binance, and NordicTrack were amongst companies that announced plans to go public. Intuit could be in talks to buy Mailchimp for more than US$10 billion, and Robinhood’s stock fell after Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler told Barron’s that banning the controversial practice of payment for order flow is “on the table” and PayPal is exploring a stock-trading service for US customers amid a boom in retail investing, CNBC first reported Monday.