AnalytixInsight

After a few quiet weeks, last week was once again very strong from a Canadian capital markets perspective. Nearly a billion dollars of Canadian VC funding was announced, with a lot of attention on Wealthsimple’s $750 million financing. Canadian innovation public markets have also been very robust, with recent IPOs by Thinkific, Magnet Forensics and listings by Taiga Motors, and InterCure. In the USA, the Apple – Epic lawsuit continues to reveal very interesting data points, while the global chip shortage continues to persist. Lastly, Bitcoin is expected to become available to customers of hundreds of banks in the US this year, as crypto custody firm NYDIG has teamed up with fintech company Fidelity National Information Services, in a move which could be very interesting for the cryptocurrency.

Last week, was full of corporate earnings, with plenty of high-profile companies reporting their quarterly results. Our favourite stock from our sell side equity research days, Shopify (SHOP-NYSE, SHOP-TSX), reported a monster quarter, in what is typically a seasonally soft period. We recently had a conversation with the Morning Brew on Shopify’s evolution and success during the COVID pandemic, as the company appears to be at a crossroads. Canadian VC backed firms, had an extraordinarily strong week with regards to fund raising, with news by Sonder, Vena, and Clio. Multiple Chinese tech giants seem to be coming under increasing government scrutiny, while Apple’s much anticipated iOS 14.5 was made available, which could cause some dislocation in the ad-tech ecosystem.