March 16, 2025: Fourth Successive Down Week

Last week Dow Jones lost 3.1%, S&P 500 fell 2.3%, and Nasdaq was down 2.4% — all three major indices hit six-month lows during the week. Autonomous trucking startup Kodiak Robotics, is in talks to merge with Ares Acquisition Corp. II in a SPAC deal that would result in a post-merger valuation of US$2 billion. Klarna eked out a slim US$21 million profit last year after a series of annual losses following an international expansion into the U.S. according to the Company’s pre-IPO filing. Hinge Health has officially filed to go public. Anthropic reached $1.4 billion in annualized revenue as of this month. Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, announced it has received a US$2 billion investment from MGX. Mortgage firm Rocket agreed to buy Redfin at a valuation of US$2.4 billion, a 50% premium. Google announced two new AI models to power robots, built on top of its most recent main Gemini model. Meta is reportedly testing in-house chips for AI training. In Canada, in news pertaining to Sophic Capital clients, Kraken Robotics expanded its U.S. footprint with the acquisition of 3D at Depth. Kraken will indirectly acquire 3D at Depth for US$17 million in cash subject to adjustment for, among other things, any debt indirectly assumed or paid out on closing and to customary working capital adjustments. 3D at Depth has grown revenue at a 20% CAGR over the last three years and reported 2024 unaudited US GAAP revenues of US$14 million, gross profit of US$8.4 million (60%), and US$1.1 million of Operating Income. Plurilock secured a $1.4 million contract with the Canadian Federal Government. The Company also provided an update on the status of exercised Warrants. Over 22 million of $0.25 warrants have been exercised, raising more than $6 million. The remaining $0.25 warrants could bring over $2 million in additional funds. In other Canadian news, Toronto based Cohere is partnering with LG to offer AI products for South Korea. Toronto-based construction technology startup Augmenta has secured an additional US$10 million in seed funding to refine and expand its building design software.

Sophic Client Kraken Robotics (PNG-TSXV, KRKNF-OTC) expands U.S. footprint with acquisition of 3D at Depth.

Kraken Robotics Inc. announces that, through a subsidiary, it has signed a definitive agreement and plan of merger (the “Agreement”) to acquire 100% of the shares of 3D at Depth, Inc. (“3D at Depth”), a leading American subsea technology and services company specializing in high resolution LiDAR imaging and measurements. Under the terms of the Agreement, Kraken will indirectly acquire 3D at Depth for US$17 million in cash subject to adjustment for, among other things, any debt indirectly assumed or paid out on closing and to customary working capital adjustments (the “Transaction”). The Transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions, including, without limitation, consent of Kraken’s primary lender and is expected to close on or about April 1, 2025. Transaction details are provided below. With a 15-year track record, 3D at Depth’s headquarters and production facility are based in Longmont, Colorado with offshore service operations based out of Houston, Texas, and satellite offices in Norwich and Aberdeen, UK. 3D at Depth employs 56 people and provides underwater LiDAR technology and services resulting in comprehensive, accurate data to enable informed decision making on underwater assets and infrastructure in a cost-effective, low risk manner. The company’s services are driven by its in-house, patented underwater LiDAR technology. 3D at Depth has grown revenue at a 20% CAGR over the last three years and reported 2024 unaudited US GAAP revenues of US$14 million, gross profit of US$8.4 million (60%), and US$1.1 million of Operating Income. Over the last three years, 3D at Depth has seen average project value increase by over 45% as demand for its subsea LiDAR technology is driven by customer needs for higher accuracy, enhanced data resolution, and insights for the safe and cost-effective management of underwater assets and infrastructure. https://t.co/LNraJAUVVI

Sophic Client Plurilock (PLUR-TSXV, PLCKF-OTCQB) secures $1.4 million contract with Canadian Federal Government.

Plurilock has been awarded a three-year sales order for a total of $1.478 million with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat for secure IT solutions. Federal agencies require robust security and compliance frameworks for IT implementations, and the Treasury Board Secretariat has selected Plurilock to ensure secure deployment and operational integrity within key federal programs. The one-year contract, with two optional renewal years for a total potential duration of three years, was secured through the Company’s subsidiary Integra Networks Corporation. “Winning this contract with the Treasury Board Secretariat is another testament to Plurilock’s ability to deliver secure, enterprise-grade IT solutions to government agencies,” said Ian L. Paterson, CEO of Plurilock. “As cybersecurity and digital transformation remain top priorities for federal organizations, we look forward to supporting Canada’s government with technology that enhances operational efficiency while maintaining the highest security standards.” The contract, awarded through a competitive bidding process, highlights Plurilock’s expertise in IT infrastructure and compliance-driven technology designed to meet essential infrastructure needs at a competitive price. https://t.co/xED5Iu1u8r

Sophic Client Plurilock (PLUR-TSXV, PLCKF-OTCQB) provides an update on the status of exercised Warrants.

Over 22 million $0.25 warrants exercised since free trading was announced raising more than $6 million. Remaining $0.25 warrants could bring over $2 million in additional funds. Plurilock provided the market with an update on the exercising of the first tranche of warrants which were issued upon closing of the oversubscribed private placement in April 2024. Management is pleased to announce that as of March 13, 2025, warrants were exercised to purchase 22,502,494 of the Company’s common shares at an average price of $0.27, generating $6,089,936 in gross proceeds. Plurilock’s Board and management have also exercised warrants for this series to purchase over 1.7 million common shares for a value exceeding $440,000, demonstrating their confidence in the Company’s future. This is an increase from prior updates, including the October 7, 2024 announcement that 13,627,613 warrants were exercised at an average price of $0.26, raising $3,595,644, and the August 28, 2024 announcement that 8,038,946 warrants were exercised at an average price of $0.27, adding $2,190,949 to the Company’s Treasury. First Tranche of $0.25 Warrants Ratcheting to $0.40 on April 25, 2025. With the first tranche of $0.25 warrants set to ratchet to $0.40 on April 25, 2025, the Company encourages shareholders to exercise their warrants before the deadline to maximize their value. Plurilock remains focused on driving operational efficiency, expanding its commercial and federal cybersecurity footprint, and delivering long-term shareholder value. The Company expects continued momentum in 2025, supported by strong demand for its cybersecurity services and strategic growth initiatives. https://t.co/Ha5Ko9GeVB

Cohere partners with LG unit to offer AI products for South Korea.

Cohere, one of the earliest venture-backed developers of artificial intelligence models, is teaming up with a subsidiary of electronics giant LG to develop highly localized AI products for businesses in South Korea, the companies said Monday. Canada-based Cohere, which has faced tough competition from bigger U.S. rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic, is expanding its business in non-English speaking countries in search of more revenue. Under the new partnership, Cohere and LG CNS will develop AI models with strong Korean language capabilities and offer products that are tailored for specific industries like financial services, the companies said. Cohere last year launched a similar partnership in Japan, where it works with Fujitsu to provide local businesses with AI products based on Japanese language models co-developed by the two companies. Cohere’s annualized revenue was US$70 million at the start of this year, more than triple since last March, thanks in part to its growth in non-English speaking countries like Japan, The Information reported last month. https://tinyurl.com/33pbj7b9

Augmenta closes $14.4 million to advance quest towards AI-driven building design.

Toronto-based construction technology startup Augmenta has secured an additional US$10 million in seed funding to refine and expand its building design software. Raised via a simple agreement for future equity, Augmenta’s latest financing closed earlier this month and was led by Prelude Ventures with support from fellow new Silicon Valley-based investor Montage Ventures. This round brings Augmenta’s total funding to nearly $37 million, a figure that includes a $5.3 million seed round in 2022 and a $15.6 million seed extension from 2023. Augmenta’s tech is being used to help design systems for hospitals, schools, labs, and maintenance facilities. https://tinyurl.com/3mjxt3d6

D-Wave claims ‘Quantum Supremacy,’ beating traditional computers.

“This, in some sense, is the holy grail for quantum computing,” said Alan Baratz, chief executive of D-Wave. The news marks the most recent salvo in the war among both tech giants and startups to establish quantum supremacy—and therefore the value of quantum computers—that has been going since at least 2019, when Google said it had achieved the milestone. More recently, Google and Amazon each announced their own quantum chips while Microsoft in February said it created a new state of matter to help make quantum computers more powerful. But just as Google’s announcement six years ago sparked debate among scientists, D-Wave’s quantum supremacy claim is also being disputed by physicists—particularly those who say classical computers still have their place. https://tinyurl.com/29f2t3b4

Kodiak Robotics in talks for SPAC deal at US$2 billion valuation.

Autonomous trucking startup Kodiak Robotics is in talks to merge with Ares Acquisition Corp. II in a SPAC deal that would result in a post-merger valuation of US$2 billion, according to Bloomberg. The SPAC is currently asking shareholders to vote to extend the merger period, which is set to expire April 25, according to securities filings. The Mountain View, Calif.,-based Kodiak sells self-driving software that can be outfitted onto different modes of transportation, from semi trucks to military ground vehicles. Originally focused on trucking, the company has expanded to the defense and industrial industries and charges customers using its software on a per-mile basis. In January, the seven-year-old startup said customer-owned vehicles outfitted with its technology completed driverless commercial semi-trucking operations for the first time. https://tinyurl.com/4wtk75p5

Klarna touts AI savings, ekes out profit in pre-IPO filing.

Klarna eked out a slim US$21 million profit last year after a series of annual losses following an international expansion into the U.S., according to the the Swedish buy-now, pay-later company’s prospectus filed on Friday. Klarna, which is preparing to IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, also revealed revenue grew 24% to US$2.8 billion last year–faster than the 20% growth rate a year earlier. Klarna’s valuation topped out at more than US$45 billion in 2021, but recent valuations peg the company’s value at around US$15 billion. The company has been trying to strip costs from its business as part of a pivot to AI-powered engineering and customer service. The firm said 96% of its workers use generative AI in their daily work, and Klarna’s AI chatbot solves 62% of customer inquiries (the equivalent work of 800 full time employees, according to the company). Expenses for sales and marketing and customer service and operations both fell around 15% last year. This was offset by steeper credit losses, mainly from its U.S. expansion, and higher funding costs as the company had to pay higher interest rates on consumer deposits. Klarna’s active users–who use a product or log in to Klarna’s app at least once a year–grew 11% to 93 million last year. https://tinyurl.com/3df454xu

Hinge Health just filed to go public.

It could be the healthtech IPO the market has been waiting for. Hinge Health has officially filed to go public. The physical therapy startup filed its S-1 for an initial public offering on Monday, tapping investment banks Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and Bank of America on the deal. If Hinge Health goes through with its IPO, it’ll be the first healthcare delivery startup to do so in nearly three years. The public markets have been mostly closed for healthcare startups since the industry’s last wave of IPOs in 2021 after the companies that went public in that cycle didn’t put in a strong showing. https://tinyurl.com/34fr6pns

OpenAI signs US$12 billion deal with CoreWeave, will get equity stake.

CoreWeave, an Nvidia-backed cloud provider, has signed a five-year deal to rent AI servers to OpenAI, according to a Reuters report. As part of the cloud deal, OpenAI will also get a stake in CoreWeave expected to be worth US$350 million when the company goes public. CoreWeave’s largest customer is Microsoft, which has signed deals to spend more than US$10 billion renting AI servers through 2030. It’s unclear whether the OpenAI contract is a net new deal for CoreWeave. Microsoft has previously signed deals with CoreWeave to get extra capacity for OpenAI. The Financial Times reported that Microsoft cut back on some planned spending with CoreWeave due to delivery issues and missed deadlines. CoreWeave denied the report and said “there have been no contract cancellations or walking away from commitments.” Spokespeople for OpenAI and CoreWeave did not immediately respond to a request for comment. https://tinyurl.com/4nhj4vue

Anthropic reaches US$1.4 billion in annualized revenue.

Anthropic has reached $1.4 billion in annualized revenue as of this month, according to a person with direct knowledge of the company’s finances, implying monthly revenue of around $116 million. The OpenAI competitor’s revenue has increased from the US$1 billion in annualized revenue that Anthropic hit at the end of 2024, thanks to sales of API and chatbot sales. Anthropic, which was recently valued at US$61.5 billion, has told investors it plans to generate up to US$3.7 billion in revenue for the year and reduce its cash by nearly half this year from US$5.6 billion last year. To aid in those financial ambitions, the company recently released a new reasoning model, Claude 3.7, and Claude Code, a coding assistant. https://tinyurl.com/yvpvz2xj

Binance raises US$2 billion from Abu Dhabi’s MGX.

Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, announced it has received a US$2 billion investment from MGX, an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund. The minority stake in Binance marks the first crypto bet by MGX, which has invested in artificial intelligence startups including OpenAI and Anthropic. It’s also the first institutional investment Binance has received to date. Binance said it currently employs about 1,000 of its 5,000 global workforce in the United Arab Emirates. https://tinyurl.com/bdhfps3m

Rocket to buy Redfin for US$2.4 billion.

Mortgage firm Rocket agreed to buy Redfin at a valuation of US$2.4 billion, a 50% premium to where the real estate brokerage has been trading. The companies said the deal would unite firms engaged with two sides of the home buying sector. The deal follows a difficult period of several years for Redfin, which went public in 2017, when it was still growing quickly. But its growth tailed off a couple of years ago and in 2023 revenue shrank, before recovering a little last year. Rocket hopes the purchase will help lift its mortgage growth, by matching home buyers with “the best real estate agents and the best loan officers” at the companies. https://tinyurl.com/bde9zjwy

Oracle projects faster revenue growth due to AI data centers.

Oracle’s stock was up slightly after hours on Monday after the company indicated that its business of renting out servers for artificial intelligence will help boost revenue 15% to US$66 billion in the fiscal year that begins in June compared to 7% growth on average in recent quarters. CEO Safra Catz also said she expects revenue to grow 20% in the fiscal year that ends May 2027 due to a backlog of AI server deals totaling more than US$130 billion, thanks to customers such as OpenAI, xAI, Meta and Nvidia. The comments came two months after Oracle announced a joint venture with OpenAI and SoftBank to develop data centers for the ChatGPT maker. Oracle’s ability to hit its revenue goals depends on whether it can expand the data centers it operates. Catz said she expects Oracle to spend US$16 billion in capital expenditures for data centers, including Nvidia chips and other hardware, in the current fiscal year, up 50% from the previous fiscal year. That pales in comparison with its larger cloud competitors like Amazon Web Services, which is on track to spend more than US$100 billion on capex in 2025. Oracle’s revenue from renting out cloud servers grew 49% to US$2.7 billion in the quarter that ended in February, down from a 52% revenue growth rate in the November quarter. By comparison, Google Cloud revenue grew 30% to US$12 billion in the December quarter, an arguably more impressive result than Oracle’s. https://tinyurl.com/5n7dxj59

IPhone maker Foxconn’s quarterly net profit shrinks 13%.

Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturer that makes most of the world’s iPhones, said its net profit in the fourth quarter of 2024 fell 13% year on year. It was the first decline in Foxconn’s quarterly earnings since the second quarter of 2023, when net profit slipped 0.9%. The decline in Foxconn’s fourth-quarter earnings to around US$77 billion comes amid slowing sales of the iPhone, which fell about 1% on year in the quarter ending Dec. 28, according to Apple’s financial statements. Still, Foxconn said it expects its revenue from consumer electronics to grow in the current quarter and that sales from its cloud and networking products could also grow significantly. The growing adoption of artificial intelligence models and applications is boosting demand for servers and networking products, the company said. https://tinyurl.com/47s6776u

Adobe shares drop 14% as concerns about AI growth overshadow better-than-expected results.

Adobe shares closed down 14% following the company’s quarterly earnings report as investors fretted over lingering growth concerns and the software maker’s artificial intelligence monetization strategy. The sell-off came despite better-than-expected results. Worries have mounted in recent months that the company is falling behind some competitors and losing its advantage in generative AI. The company’s annualized recurring revenue from AI contributed US$125 million during the period and Adobe expects that to double by the end of the fiscal year. https://tinyurl.com/563btscv

Google announces robotics AI models.

Google on Wednesday announced two new artificial intelligence models to power robots, built on top of its most recent main Gemini model. In a press release, Google said that one of the models combines vision, language and physical action capabilities; the other has advanced spatial understanding. In pre-recorded demo videos, robotic arms did tasks like folding paper into origami, packing a lunchbox and placing fruit into moving bowls. Google has long tried to develop robotics, to mixed success. Its latest announcement comes amidst a surge of interest in applying AI to build general purpose robots that can complete a range of tasks, as Google’s models seek to. OpenAI has also discussed making a humanoid robot and rebooted its internal robotics software unit last year, but hasn’t yet released anything. https://tinyurl.com/bdzp5y6c

Meta is reportedly testing in-house chips for AI training.

Meta is reportedly testing an in-house chip for training AI systems, a part of a strategy to reduce its reliance on hardware makers like Nvidia. According to Reuters, Meta’s chip, which is designed to handle AI-specific workloads, was manufactured in partnership with Taiwan-based firm TSMC. The company is piloting a “small deployment” of the chip and plans to scale up production if the test is successful. Meta has deployed custom AI chips before, but only to run models — not train them. As Reuters notes, several of the company’s chip design efforts have been canceled or otherwise scaled back after failing to meet internal expectations. Meta expects to spend US$65 billion on capital expenditure this year, much of which will go toward Nvidia GPUs. If the company manages to reduce even a fraction of that cost by shifting to in-house chips, it’d be a big win for the social media giant. https://tinyurl.com/y3x9mubh

Sophic Client American Aires (WIFI-CSE, AAIRF-OTCQB) – Why did Aires provide guidance now?

This video has a lot of meaningful discussions from Aires management on the financial side of things and the upside. The upside and balanced path to that upside is worth a listen. When asked why Aires provided guidance in January 2025 for the first time, Aires CEO responded: “We have the strongest foundation that we’ve ever had, and that can really support this growth. So, demonstrating our ability to grow, now doing so on top of that firm and strong foundation, this is just really the first time I feel like all those pieces have come together and we have a really clear path to that future. So the guidance really is really just mirroring what we’ve been saying. We’re just now saying it louder.” Check out this video to hear more from CEO Josh Bruni and CFO Vitaliy Savitsky about Aires’ guidance for 2025 and management’s expectations for the future. https://tinyurl.com/4rwruv6e

Sophic Client Plurilock (PLUR-TSXV, PLCKF-OTCQB) Code and Country Podcast Episode 7 – Richard Fadden, Former CSIS Director.

Canada’s next election is already under attack—and most voters don’t even know it. Foreign adversaries are not waiting for ballots to be cast before interfering in Canada’s 2025 federal election. The fight isn’t happening at polling stations—it’s happening online, in misinformation campaigns, and through AI-driven influence operations. In this episode of Code and Country, former CSIS Director Dick Fadden exposes how foreign actors, including China, are manipulating public perception long before election day. Disinformation more than a nuisance—it’s a weapon. Deepfakes, AI-generated propaganda, and cyber warfare tactics are being deployed to destabilize democracy right now. The warning signs are clear. The question is: Will Canada take action before it’s too late? This episode is essential listening for anyone who cares about the integrity of our democracy. Listen now, subscribe, and stay informed. The fight for truth starts here. https://tinyurl.com/yc6ttypv