AnalytixInsight

With the US elections looming in the coming days, capital markets newsflow in the USA this past week focused on M&A vs. new issues. Internationally, the imminent Ant Group IPO, seems very eagerly anticpated by investors. In Canada, as we expected a few weeks ago, we saw activity in the healthcare tech space with Vitalhub and CB2 Insights, both announcing financings.

Most Canadian investors we spoke with this past week, seem as enthusiastic as ever on the telehealth space. We expect more activity in this sector. In the larger tech space, PayPal’s crypto move and the US Antitrust lawsuit against Google seem to be major stories this past week. Looking ahead, the next week is packed with major tech giants releasing earnings, as well as Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai will appear before a US Senate committee examining Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Canadian public market investors appear bullish on telehealth & health tech companies, as evidenced by their recent stock performance. We would expect increased capital allocated to this sector in the near term. The investment by a subsidiary of the investment arm of Alibaba Group into PopReach (POPR-TSXV) also appears to have resonated well with investors. Recall, such validation by a well regarded international investor was a very strong endorsement for Well Health (WELL-TSX), which dramatically improved that company’s access to capital.