May 23, 2026: Markets Setting Up For IPOs/Exit Liquidity

Last week, Dow Jones rose 2.1%, S&P 500 gained 0.9%, Nasdaq composite was up 0.45%, all indices very close to record highs. Against this backdrop, high profile IPOs appear to be ready to come to market. After years of massive and numerous private rounds, and being welcomed by changing index inclusion and weighting rules, investors need to balance potential upside, while avoiding being “exit liquidity”. Wall Street is bracing for an IPO wave after Cerebras’ semiconductor debut raised US$6.4 billion at a US$70 billion valuation. SpaceX tapped Goldman Sachs for its mid-June listing, alongside a US$60 billion deal to buy Cursor. OpenAI’s Sam Altman signaled a potential listing pause despite an imminent public filing, following the dismissal of Elon Musk’s lawsuit. Anthropic is targeting its first operating profit of US$559 million on US$10.9 billion in Q2 revenue while raising US$30 billion at a US$900 billion valuation, having just bought Stainless. Nvidia posted an 85% revenue surge to US$81.6 billion with US$48.6 billion in free cash flow, projecting 95% growth next quarter. Meta began cutting 8,000 jobs while moving 7,000 into Applied AI. Intuit cut 17% of staff as growth slowed to 10%. Google and Blackstone will partner on a US$5 billion TPU cloud venture. IBM and the U.S. government announced a US$1 billion CHIPS-backed quantum foundry called Anderon. The Gates Foundation dumped its US$3 billion Microsoft stake. In Canada, Cohere acquired biopharma data startup Reliant AI. Telecom platform, Gaiia raised a US$40 million Series B, and Sagard launched a US$150 million AI fund. Xanadu struck a US$300 million synthetic ATM equity deal alongside an algorithmic QROM breakthrough. Quantum Bridge raised US$8 million and N49P hit a US$25 million first close for Fund IV. Backlash is mounting to Bill C-22, the proposed Canadian legislation that would give law enforcement more power to surveil personal communications and data. In news pertaining to Sophic clients, Legend Power Systems announced $1.3 million in SmartGATE orders alongside Q2 revenue of $546 thousand, narrowing losses. Ionik secured a 30-day senior debt extension to June 25.

Sophic Client Legend Power Systems Inc. (LPS-TSXV, LPSIF-OTC) $1.3 million in orders for 12 SmartGATE Systems as enhanced customer value strategy gains traction.

Legend Power Systems announced multiple orders representing 12 SmartGATE™ systems during the quarter. The orders follow implementation of the Company’s enhanced three-pronged strategy intended to address customer evaluation of the broader financial impact of power conditions on commercial buildings. The orders announced include opportunities across multiple sales channels, including government expansion opportunities, reseller-driven sales channels, and existing customer expansion projects. One of the existing customer expansion opportunities had previously been paused and was subsequently reactivated following customer review of the Company’s Capital Infrastructure Risk Assessment (“CIRA”) framework and additional operating analysis prepared by the Company. The orders represent approximately CAD $1.3 million in aggregate contract value (with a 45% gross margin) and consist of signed purchase orders and customer commitments received during the quarter. The orders include a combination of government-related expansion projects, reseller channel sales, and existing customer expansion opportunities. Delivery timing is expected to occur over the current and upcoming quarters. “We recognized that the market needed a clearer way to quantify the broader financial impact of operating voltage conditions beyond energy savings alone,” said Mike Cioce, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Legend Power Systems. “We believe the progress we have made refining our value proposition, incorporating third-party infrastructure data, and analyzing real-world SmartGATE operating results is helping customers better evaluate the relationship between operating conditions, infrastructure risk, and long-term building performance.” https://t.co/pHxv0LyQ2A

Sophic Client Legend Power Systems Inc. (LPS-TSXV, LPSIF-OTC) reports Q2 F2026 financial results.

Legend Power Systems reported its financial results for the three and six months ended March 31, 2026 (“Q2 F2026”). Revenue of $546 thousand versus $523 thousand in Q2 F2025. Adjusted EBITDA loss of $294 thousand versus a loss of $810 thousand in Q2 F2025. Net loss of $443 thousand versus a loss of $940 thousand in Q2 F2025. “The second quarter of 2026 marked another important step forward for Legend Power Systems as customer engagement and commercial activity continued to accelerate,” said Randy Buchamer, CEO of Legend Power Systems. “Our pipeline is stronger than ever, driven by growing recognition that power quality and energy reliability are becoming mission-critical priorities across commercial real estate, education, government, transportation, and defense infrastructure. Customers are increasingly leaning into our enhanced analytical tools and proprietary risk metrics, which are helping quantify the broader operational and financial impact of poor power quality beyond traditional energy savings alone. As we continue advancing late-stage opportunities and expanding strategic partnerships, we believe SmartGATE™ is increasingly being viewed as essential building energy infrastructure rather than a discretionary efficiency upgrade.” Q2 F2026 Operational Highlights. Technology Proving Ground program for the United States General Services Administration, which operates approximately 1,800 federally owned buildings is proceeding well. The first site has been installed, and data is being generated for third-party review. Sales activity is continuing at a strong pace, as evidenced from customers, repeat, stalled and new business, who continue engaging with deep and wide interest. The strength in viability is driven mainly by customers articulating power quality concerns and higher visible costs. Partner sales efforts also continue to grow in volume, dollars, and strength. Legend Power Systems is engaged in active sales processes with several of the top firms in the Commercial Real Estate space, with over 196 buildings in active sales cycles for over 400 plus potential SmartGATE’s. Subsequent Events to Quarter End. Legend Power announced $1.3 million in orders representing 12 SmartGATE systems across government expansion projects, reseller-driven sales channels, and existing customer expansion opportunities. The orders reflect growing traction from the Company’s enhanced customer value strategy, including its Capital Infrastructure Risk Assessment (CIRA) framework and expanded analytical tools designed to better quantify the operational, maintenance, and long-term infrastructure benefits of SmartGATE beyond traditional energy savings metrics. https://t.co/2rRWur5ehV

Sophic Client Ionik (INIK-TSXV, INIKF-OTCQX) announces 30-Day extension of senior debt facility.

Ionik Corporation announced that it has received a 30-day extension from its senior lenders under the Company’s syndicated debt facility (the “Syndicated Debt Facility”). The maturity date of the Syndicated Debt Facility has been extended from May 25, 2026 to June 25, 2026. The extension provides the Company with additional time to continue discussions regarding a longer term financing solution. The Company is actively engaged in the process of securing a new syndicated debt facility (the “New Facility”) to replace the existing Syndicated Debt Facility. In connection with the New Facility, the Company intends to undertake a comprehensive debt reorganization (the “Debt Reorganization”) in order to address legacy acquisition-related indebtedness, amend debt instruments and accrued obligations, simplify the Company’s capital structure, and improve its overall financial position. The Company will announce additional details relating to the New Facility and Debt Reorganization in due course. “We appreciate the continued support of our senior lenders and the constructive engagement we have had throughout this process,” said Ted Hastings, Chief Executive Officer of Ionik. “This short-term extension provides additional time to continue working toward a longer-term financing solution while we remain focused on operating the business and executing our strategic priorities.” https://tinyurl.com/28s76yhj

Light AI announces $5,000,000 secured Convertible Debenture Unit financing.

Light AI Inc., a digital healthcare technology company focused on developing artificial intelligence (“AI”) health diagnostic solutions, entered into an investment agreement (the “Investment Agreement”) with MV Capital LP (the “Investor”) for a private placement of secured convertible debenture units of the Company (the “Units”) at $1,000 per Unit for gross proceeds of $5,000,000 (the “Financing”). Pursuant to the Investment Agreement, the Investor has agreed to subscribe for and purchase from the Company 5,000 Units. Each Unit will comprise of (i) a 12.0% secured convertible debenture of the Company in the principal amount equal to $1,000 (each, a “Convertible Debenture”) with interest compounded quarterly and payable on the earlier of the Maturity Date (as defined hereafter), prepayment or conversion and maturing 24 months from the closing of the Financing (the “Maturity Date”), and (ii) 8,000 common share purchase warrants (each, a “Warrant”), each Warrant being exercisable for a period of 36 months following the closing of the Financing (the “Closing Date”) to purchase one common share of the Company (each, a “Warrant Share”) at an exercise price of $0.25 per Warrant Share, subject to adjustment in certain events. Each Convertible Debenture will allow the Investor to convert the outstanding principal thereof into common shares of the Company (the “Debenture Shares”) at a price of $0.125 per Debenture Share (the “Conversion Price”) at the option of the Investor at any time prior to the earlier of (i) the Maturity Date; and (ii) the business day immediately preceding the date specified for prepayment of the Convertible Debenture, subject to acceleration in certain events. The Company may elect to pay any accrued and unpaid interest in either (i) cash, (ii) common shares of the Company (the “Common Shares”) at the Conversion Price, subject to the approval of Cboe Canada Inc. (the “Exchange”), or (iii) any combination of the foregoing. Beginning on the date that is six months following the Closing Date, the Company may force the conversion of the principal amount of the then outstanding Convertible Debentures and all outstanding and unpaid interest at the Conversion Price on not less than 10 days’, but no more than 60 days’ advance written notice should the daily volume weighted average trading price of the Common Shares on the Exchange be equal to or greater than $1.00 per Common Share for the preceding 10 consecutive trading days. Upon a change of control of the Company, the Investor will have the right to require the Company to repurchase the Convertible Debenture, in whole or in part, on the date that is 30 days following the giving of the notice of change of control, at a price equal to 110% of the principal amount of the Convertible Debentures then outstanding plus accrued and unpaid interest thereon. The Investor has agreed not to convert any Convertible Debenture or exercise any Warrants if doing so would result in the Investor holding greater than 19.9% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares, without first obtaining shareholders’ approval and approval from the Exchange.The proceeds of the Financing will be used for general working capital purposes, and to support ISO 13485/QMS audit completion and Health Canada registration submission. In addition to the Financing, the Company and the Investor will enter into an investor rights agreement, which includes the following key elements: The Investor will have the right to participate in future financing of the Company to maintain its pro rata percentage of Common Shares following the completion the Financing; and The Investor shall have the right to nominate one member to the board of directors of the Company. Such investor rights agreement shall terminate on earlier of: (i) the closing of a Combination Transaction; and (ii) the later of (A) the date the Investor no longer maintains at least a 10% equity interest in the Company’s issued and outstanding Common Shares, and (B) the date on which the principal amount of the Convertible Debenture owed to the Investor is less than $250,000. The Financing is expected to close on or around June 19, 2026 and is subject to certain closing conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary regulatory and stock exchange approvals, including the approval of the Exchange. https://tinyurl.com/mrxfpcbp

Cohere acquires second company with German ties in Reliant AI.

Toronto-based AI scaleup Cohere has acquired yet another German-rooted company in Montréal- and Berlin-based Reliant AI. The acquisition is meant to help push Cohere’s flagship AI product into a new vertical: healthcare. Cohere announced the acquisition of the biopharmaceutical data processing startup on Tuesday morning. It marks Cohere’s second acquisition deal in a month, following the April announcement of its planned takeover of German firm Aleph Alpha. In addition to strengthened European ties, Cohere said the deal significantly expands its footprint in the global healthcare and life sciences sectors. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. https://tinyurl.com/426s4afv

Sagard spins up new US$150 million AI fund.

Montréal-based financial services conglomerate Power Corporation of Canada (Power Corp) is spinning up a new AI fund through its alternative asset management business, Sagard. Power Corp and two of its operating companies, Great West Lifeco and IGM Financial, announced a combined US$150 million ($206 million) investment into a new Sagard AI Fund on Wednesday morning. “Being a firm that stays in the status quo is not going to work in the future.” Paul Desmarais III, Sagard. The fund will back AI companies that are “accelerating the adoption of AI across financial services and other key sectors globally,” according to an IGM news release. The fund is meant to provide Power Corp with access to global AI market intelligence, commercial partnerships, pilot projects, and application opportunities across its group of companies. https://tinyurl.com/b8jvwz82

Xanadu strikes deal to raise up to US$300 million.

Toronto-based quantum computing firm Xanadu Quantum Technologies has struck a deal to raise up to US$300 million, the same day it claimed a breakthrough that could make quantum operations significantly cheaper. Xanadu revealed last week it was in negotiations to establish a US$300-million synthetic at-the-market (ATM) equity facility—a popular fundraising mechanism that can help public companies quickly, quietly, and cheaply raise capital. The agreement with Yorkville Advisors, a New Jersey investment firm with ties to US President Donald Trump, gives Xanadu the ability to raise up to that amount by selling subordinate voting shares in private placements to Yorkville over the next three years. https://tinyurl.com/2ucxc5bc

Telecom software startup Gaiia secures US$40 million Series B round.

Québec City-based telecom software startup Gaiia has raised a US$40 million ($54.8 million) Series B round as it hopes to invest an “ungodly” amount in its product, research and development, and 90-person team. Gaiia has raised nearly $90 million from backers including Y Combinator, GTMfund, and Workleap CEO Simon De Baene. The all-equity, all-primary minority investment was led by US private equity firm JMI Equity—which has backed Canadian tech companies such as Clio and PointClickCare—with participation from Montréal’s Inovia Capital. JMI Equity will also take a board seat as part of the deal, which closed in April. https://tinyurl.com/23yps7af

N49P’s US$25 million first close for Fund IV will help it hunt more “diamonds in the rough”.

Toronto-based venture capital (VC) firm N49P has completed the first close of its fourth fund, securing US$25 million ($34 million) in commitments towards its $70 million target. N49P announced the news on Thursday morning. This close is more than double the size of N49P’s second fund, which it raised in early 2020, and nearly on par with its US$27.7 million third fund from mid-2022. The VC firm plans to use this money to invest in more nascent but promising technology startups with strong Canadian ties. N49P aims to cut $500,000 to $1.5 million first cheques and build a portfolio of 27 to 30 companies. https://tinyurl.com/msrm2jxp

Quantum Bridge raises US$8 million to prepare for “Q-Day”.

One day, perhaps within the decade, quantum computers will be able to crack like an egg the encryption algorithm protecting your password. That day is known as “Q-Day,” and it’s what Toronto-based Quantum Bridge Technologies has been preparing for. “National security can’t wait for perfect conditions.” The 20-person startup, which spun out of the University of Toronto in 2019, announced on Wednesday morning that it has closed an US$8 million Series A funding round to scale up its Q-Day-ready encryption method: the Distributed Symmetric Key Establishment (DSKE) protocol. Quantum Bridge says DKSE is designed to be deployed on top of existing infrastructure, vendors, and security layers, allowing organizations to add quantum-safe protection without disrupting their existing operations. The fresh funding round was led by Italian asset management firm Primo Capital, with participation from Wayra, the corporate venture capital arm of Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica. Other participants include US-based investors Cadenza VC, Hewlett Packard, Bacchus Venture Capital, and Italian angel network Club degli Investitori angels. Alongside previous financing from Alumni Ventures and the University of Toronto, the Series A round brings Quantum Bridge’s total capital raised to US$16 million to date. https://tinyurl.com/msaxh9ns

Xanadu breakthrough lowers the cost of quantum applications.

Xanadu Quantum Technologies Limited announced an algorithmic breakthrough in Quantum Read-Only Memory (QROM), a vital component for executing advanced quantum applications. This new implementation is expected to reduce the number of expensive quantum operations by approximately twofold, directly overcoming a significant hardware bottleneck that challenges near-term, utility-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers. QROM is an algorithmic subroutine for loading classical data onto a quantum computer, and constitutes a major bottleneck for applications of quantum computers. Despite its critical importance, QROM performance had reached a plateau, with no significant improvements to the previous state-of-the-art over the last seven years. Xanadu’s recent work breaks this dry spell by delivering an advancement that lowers the resource requirements for quantum applications. https://tinyurl.com/3ur5d2ba

Digital surveillance Bill C-22 threatens to drive tech firms out of Canada.

Backlash is mounting to Bill C-22, the proposed Canadian legislation that would give law enforcement more power to surveil personal communications and data. The news: Last year, Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act, was split into two pieces of legislation after pushback over its proposed sweeping surveillance powers. Now, Bill C-22, the part of that legislation that would give law enforcement backdoor access to data and expand how long companies store user metadata, is on the table—and tech leaders are not happy. Apple and Meta have urged the government to amend the bill, while some companies like Signal and NordVPN have said if the bill passes, they’ll leave the country altogether. More than a dozen civil liberties groups have signed an open letter calling on the bill to be withdrawn, and this week US legislators wrote to Ottawa to express concerns. From the source: “A breach is inevitable, and it will make the Elections Alberta data breach look like an autocorrect mistake.” Political commentator Erica Ifill argued in the Hill Times today that the more personal information stored, and the more people who have access to that information, the greater the risk. Following the thread: Canada’s public safety minister has said tech companies are “misinterpreting” the intent of the bill, while the portfolio’s deputy minister said the government will consider changes to make the intent of the legislation clearer. There does seem to be a disconnect between intent and outcome—take the public backlash to posts from Public Safety Canada that seemingly downplay what information the bill would grant access to. Final thought: The bill has passed its first two readings in the House of Commons and is now before the House’s public safety and national security committee for consideration. At committee, police have suggested C-22 should go even further in terms of how long it requires companies to hold onto data. If it proceeds as written, expect to see privacy-focused tech companies weigh whether it’s more worthwhile to comply or leave Canada entirely. https://tinyurl.com/mrsxj39w

Canadians want a homegrown defence industry, prioritize domestic companies, new poll finds.

Canadians overwhelmingly support investing in domestically owned and controlled defence companies and oppose relying on American companies to build military equipment and technology, according to new public opinion research released today by the Alliance of Canadian Defence Companies (ACDC). A national poll conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights found that 82 per cent of Canadians believe Canada should “defend itself without relying too heavily on other countries.” The same number supports the Government of Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy to get there, which promises to transform Canada’s defence industry by prioritizing Canadian suppliers. “The polling makes clear that Canadians understand sovereignty cannot depend on others. When presented with potential defence priorities, Canadians backed Arctic security initiatives decisively. Three-quarters (74 per cent) supported purchasing Canadian-made drones and sensors to monitor remote Arctic areas, with support tracking consistently across all regions. The polling also found that Canadians are confident in domestic capacity. Seventy per cent believe Canadian companies can build defence equipment at the same quality as international competitors. https://tinyurl.com/tvwd52bh

Wall Street prepares for boom in tech IPOs after Cerebras’ success.

Wall Street is bracing for a wave of tech listings after investors piled into the initial public offering of semiconductor group Cerebras Systems, reinforcing bankers’ expectations that fundraisings could hit record highs this year. The AI chip designer pulled off the largest semiconductor IPO in history this month, raising USS$6.4 billion including the overallotment option, after bankers repeatedly raised the price and size of the offering. Cerebras’ shares ended their first day of trading up 68 per cent, valuing the start-up at about US$70 billion, on par with 117-year-old General Motors. Magdalena Heinrich, Bank of America’s head of US tech equity capital markets, said Wall Street was on pace for nearly US$90 billion of IPOs this year. The SpaceX listing expected for June, along with possible share sales for Anthropic and OpenAI, would tip this year’s haul well beyond the record US$156 billion of US IPOs in 2021, according to Dealogic. The 1,010 IPOs and Spacs (special purpose acquisition companies) completed in New York in 2021 collapsed to 148 two years later, according to Dealogic. Volumes have slowly recovered, with public market fundraising from January to April this year up 124 per cent from the same period a year ago, the data shows. https://tinyurl.com/485rb2t7

Goldman Sachs to Lead SpaceX IPO.

SpaceX tapped Goldman Sachs for the top role on its initial public offering next month, according to the Wall Street Journal. The “lead left” position would put Goldman in the driver’s seat for what will likely be the largest IPO ever. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citi and JPMorgan are the other top banks on the deal. Elon Musk’s company is expected to make public its IPO prospectus for the first time as soon as Wednesday. https://tinyurl.com/yc875ray

SpaceX’s revenue growth slowed to 15% in first quarter.

SpaceX showed a deteriorating financial profile in the first quarter after it absorbed xAI and prepared to go public. The company lost US$4.3 billion in the quarter that ended in March, while generating US$4.7 billion in revenue. Its revenue growth slowed to about 15% in the quarter, compared to the same period last year. That contrasted with a 34% growth rate overall last year. SpaceX’s largest and most standout business line, consumer subscriptions for Starlink internet, grew 44% to US$2.1 billion in the quarter. Revenue from subscriptions and business usage of its AI model Grok grew by two-third to US$475 million in the quarter. The financial statements also showed the need for the company’s IPO, which should help it raise record funding. It burned through about US$9 billion in the first quarter, about 36% of its total, leaving it with US$16 billion of cash. The company should get a jolt of revenue from its deal to sell unused compute capacity to Anthropic for as much as US$40 billion over the next few years. https://tinyurl.com/y4v4kjcu

SpaceX to acquire Cursor 30 days after IPO.

SpaceX and Cursor expect to proceed with their planned acquisition 30 days after SpaceX begins trading publicly, according to someone familiar with the matter. SpaceX is expected to go public in mid-June in the largest IPO in U.S. history. The Elon Musk-founded rockets-and-AI company announced last month that it had secured the right to buy Cursor, a leading provider of AI coding tools, for US$60 billion. The announcement didn’t specify timing beyond saying any purchase would occur later this year. If the deal falls through, SpaceX will pay Cursor a US$10 billion breakup fee. The Cursor deal is intended to strengthen SpaceX’s xAI unit, whose Grok models have fallen far behind those of competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic. https://tinyurl.com/y3djxyax

OpenAI’s Altman talks to staff about IPO timing.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman suggested Wednesday that even if the company makes a filing for a public offering, it may hold off on the actual listing. In a company-wide meeting, he noted that filing for an initial public offering was different than being ready to go public and said the company wouldn’t go public until it was ready, according to a person with knowledge of the comments. The company is preparing to file its prospectus with securities regulators in the coming weeks, The Information and others reported Wednesday. Such an immediate filing would enable it to go public as soon as September. That’s sooner than the fourth quarter or later that the company previously discussed. Some large investors in OpenAI were surprised by reports Wednesday that OpenAI was getting ready to file so soon. OpenAI is in a race to the public markets with rival Anthropic, which is eyeing a listing as soon as October, but Altman has privately said he wants to go public first. Aside from the companies’ own financial performance, how the stock market reacts to SpaceX’s upcoming mega listing and the global economy will play key roles in determining their IPO timings. The listings would help both companies pay for their massive compute costs. During the all hands, Altman also told staff that the company had recently brought more than two gigawatts of compute online, the person with knowledge said, more than all of SpaceX’s Colossus cluster. Altman said that he believed Anthropic was limited by its compute capacity and that OpenAI was gearing up to have a good next few months, the person said. Anthropic has more recently signed a number of compute deals, including one in which it will pay SpaceX US$1.25 billion per month to rent capacity from its Colossus data centers. https://tinyurl.com/yeynavrj

Oura confidentially files for IPO.

Oura Health, which makes rings that track users’ health data, filed its initial public offering paperwork Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said. Oura has not yet determined the number of shares it’ll offer, nor the proposed offering’s price range. The Information reported in March that the company had been interviewing banks to advise on its IPO, which could take place as soon as this year, and had reached US$1.3 billion in annualized revenue late last year. The company, founded in Finland in 2013, in October raised over US$900 million at a valuation of roughly US$11 billion in a round co-led by Fidelity. It has raised over US$2 billion to date, according to data firm PitchBook. Oura may be banking on a wave of forthcoming tech IPOs, like SpaceX and OpenAI, as well as renewed enthusiasm in direct-to-consumer brands. Online retailer Quince raised US$500 million at a US$10.1 billion valuation in March. https://tinyurl.com/bdej93rp

Blockchain.com files confidentially to go public.

Blockchain.com said it has filed confidential paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in London, Blockchain.com serves as a crypto brokerage, meaning it executes trades for customers by using crypto from other exchanges or from its internal inventory. In 2022, the company raised funding at a US$14 billion valuation in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, but its valuation fell to an estimated US$6.9 billion as of last April, according to most recent data from Forge, a private-markets platform. Crypto firms Kraken and Grayscale have also filed confidentially to go public in recent months, though ongoing crypto market selloff could temper investor enthusiasm for crypto IPOs. Several crypto firms that debuted last year, including crypto exchanges Gemini and Bullish, are trading below their IPO price. https://tinyurl.com/yc234tnk

Anthropic projects turning an operating profit in second quarter.

Anthropic expects to generate US$559 million in operating profit at the end of the June quarter, becoming profitable on an operating basis for the first time, according to a person with knowledge of the financials. A spike in revenue will drive the profit swing, which will take place about two years earlier than it had forecast. Anthropic expects to generate US$10.9 billion in revenue for the June quarter, up from US$4.8 billion in the March quarter. The company generated about US$4.5 billion in revenue last year. That growth puts it on pace to easily exceed earlier optimistic projections for full-year 2026 revenue of US$18 billion. OpenAI early this year forecast generating about US$30 billion in revenue this year, but it has told investors it doesn’t expect to turn a profit until 2030. Anthropic is in the process of raising US$30 billion at a US$900 billion valuation before the financing, with investors Dragoneer, Sequoia Capital, Greenoaks and Altimeter co-leading the round. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the Anthropic financials. https://tinyurl.com/pa44cf7v

U.S. to award quantum-computing firms US$2 billion and take equity stakes.

Trump administration hopes to spur ‘a new era of American innovation,’ Commerce’s Lutnick says. The Trump administration is awarding $2 billion in grants to nine quantum-computing companies in deals that include U.S. government equity stakes, the Commerce Department said. https://tinyurl.com/4vw9rjkm

Nvidia projects 95% sales growth in the current quarter.

Nvidia’s revenue grew 85% to US$81.6 billion in the three months that ended April 26, the company said Wednesday. That’s 12 percentage points higher than the blistering growth the AI chip designer reported in the January quarter. It also projected revenue would grow 95% in the current fiscal quarter, suggesting that the AI boom is far from peaking and its Blackwell-series chips are hitting their stride. The projected current-quarter results would mark the fourth consecutive quarter of sales-growth acceleration. To put the growth in perspective, Advanced Micro Devices, an AI chip rival about seven times smaller than Nvidia in revenue, said earlier this month that its revenue rose 38% in the first quarter of the year. Both companies sell graphics processing unit for AI but are also benefiting from a boom in central processing unit sales; Nvidia said it is on pace for nearly US$20 billion of standalone CPU sales this year—separate from the CPUs attached to its GPU chip systems—to power the rise of AI Agents like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex coding agents. Nvidia’s free cash flow rose 86% to an astonishing US$48.6 billion compared to the same period a year ago, and it projected steady gross profit margins in the current quarter. Nvidia rewarded shareholders by increasing its stock dividend to 25 cents a share from a penny a share. It also continues to buy back more of its stock every quarter, including US$20 billion in the April quarter. The company said it had authorized another US$80 billion of buybacks. Despite the booming results, the stock is trading at 26.7 times its forward earnings, according to S&P, down slightly from its P/E ratio three months ago. Shares fell slightly in after-hours trading Wednesday after rising 18% so far this year, giving Nvidia a US$5.4 trillion market capitalization. As Nvidia’s profit machine gets bigger, its biggest customers are trying to lessen their reliance on its chips by using or developing alternatives, but that hasn’t seemed to weaken its position. Meantime, some of those customers are likely generating better gross profit margins from renting out Nvidia chips as demand rises, leading to a growing shortage among startups and other rental customers. Underscoring that demand, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said Wednesday that prices to rent Nvidia chips that launched three to six years ago had risen 15% to 20% so far this year. The company said its biggest customers are on track to triple or quadruple their capital expenditures to between US$3 trillion and US$4 trillion, including chip purchases, between 2027 and the end of the decade. Kress said Nvidia’s share of the market for powering the most advanced, “frontier” AI models “will grow significantly,” and CEO Jensen Huang called out Anthropic as an important, relatively new customer of Nvidia chips at a large scale. He reiterated his confidence that the upcoming Vera Rubin-series chip systems will be even more successful than the current Blackwell systems. Nvidia also boosted revenue by tripling its sale of networking equipment that connects AI servers powered by its ships, showing how the company is maintaining its dominance by getting cloud providers and other data center hardware customers to buy a broader suite of products. https://tinyurl.com/m4byya7d

Anthropic buys developer tools startup Stainless.

Anthropic announced on Monday that it has acquired developer tools startup Stainless. The model maker did not disclose any terms of the deal, but The Information had previously reported it was in talks to acquire Stainless for at least US$300 million. The majority of Stainless’ employees, including its CEO Alex Rattray, are joining Anthropic in the acquisition, said a person with knowledge of the deal. Typically, developers and agents access AI models like Anthropic’s Claude through application programming interfaces. Stainless uses AI to automatically generate a special kind of software—otherwise known as a software development kit—that makes it easier to build applications from the API. Anthropic could use the technology from the acquisition to make its models and APIs easier to use. It’s possible that OpenAI—another Stainless customer and Anthropic’s biggest startup competitor—wouldn’t be able to use Stainless’ tech post-acquisition as well. Stainless has previously raised $35 million in funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, The General Partnership and Felicis. https://tinyurl.com/2p5ws46c

Uber spends US$1.8 billion increasing stake in Delivery Hero to 19.5%.

Uber lifted its stake in Germany-based food delivery firm Delivery Hero to 19.5%, with options to go to 25%, a sign the ride-hailing and delivery firm may be contemplating expanding further in Europe. Uber told a German regulator it “currently…has no intent” of buying more than 30% of Delivery Hero’s shares. The investment cost Uber about US$1.8 billion. Uber had spent US$300 million to buy a small stake in Delivery Hero in 2024, as part of another deal in which Uber was to buy Delivery Hero’s Foodpanda Taiwan that was blocked by regulators. Uber kept the Delivery Hero stake, however. Delivery Hero’s revenue last year was just a bit smaller than Uber’s food delivery business. Delivery Hero has operations in Europe, parts of Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. https://tinyurl.com/59yz32fw

Shein buys Everlane.

Everlane, a San Francisco-based startup that soared during the last decade’s e-commerce boom, will sell itself to Shein, a Chinese discount e-retail giant. The deal values Everlane at US$100 million, a far cry from the valuations that it once received at its height. Everlane was among a group of high-flying startups like Allbirds that had great luck winning over customers in the 2010s but have struggled to keep up with new fashion trends and changes within digital advertising. Last month, Allbirds said it would drastically shift focus, sell off its shoe brand and begin leasing and renting out AI chips. Everlane, meanwhile, had tried to mount a comeback with increasing piles of debt. https://tinyurl.com/2wvnuumc

Seagate stock falls on CEO comments suggesting manufacturing pullback.

Shares in Seagate Technology, which makes hard disk drives for data storage, fell 7% Monday after CEO William Mosley suggested the company was more focused on increasing capacity on its individual hard drives than “building new factories or bringing up new machines that would just take too long.” Building more factories would divert resources away from those technological innovations, potentially slowing their rate of growth, Mosley said, responding to a question at a J.P. Morgan conference Monday. Seagate’s customers have been experiencing long wait times for its hard disk drives, sometimes more than a year, as demand for that hardware surges amid the artificial intelligence boom. The company’s revenue expanded by 39% in 2025 to US$9 billion, after shrinking in 2024, propelled by AI customers buying up its products to use in data centers. Shares in two other hard drive manufacturing firms, SanDisk and Western Digital, also each fell 5% following Mosley’s comments. All three stocks are up more than 100% so far in 2026 even after Monday’s stumble. https://tinyurl.com/mwmyv7vv

Gates Foundation sells remaining Microsoft stake.

Bill Gates’ charitable trust has sold all of its Microsoft stock and no longer owns any shares in the company, it disclosed last Friday. The Gates Foundation Trust reported that it had sold around US$3 billion worth of Microsoft stock in the first quarter of 2026. Gates, who is the sole trustee of the fund, is the latest major shareholder to dump his Microsoft position. The company’s stock is down more than 10% so far this year, and the British hedge fund TCI recently said it was selling its entire US$8 billion stake on fears that new AI software from the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic could disrupt Microsoft’s core software business. Meanwhile, Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square took the opposite tack, saying Friday that it built a US$2 billion Microsoft stake in the first quarter because it believes those fears are overblown. Gates has said he plans to wind down his charitable trust over the next 20 years and sell all of its stock by then. It’s unknown if Gates himself still owns any Microsoft stock. https://tinyurl.com/9tddyv4m

Workday stock jumps 10% after company reveals AI agent gains.

Workday shares climbed more than 10% in after-hours trading on Thursday after the HR application maker said the number of customers using its AI agents in the three months ended April 30 roughly doubled from the previous quarter to more than 4,000. Gerrit Kazmaier, the company’s president of product and technology, also told investors in a call following its quarterly results that the value of new contracts signed by customers to use Workday’s products with AI agents grew 200% year-over-year. At the same time, revenue growth slowed, climbing 13.5% to US$2.5 billion in the April quarter, slightly below the 14.5% increase in the January quarter. Still, that was more than the 12.6% jump in revenue during the same period last year and more than what was expected by Wall Street analysts tracked by S&P Capital IQ. As of Thursday’s close, Workday stock had fallen around 40% so far this year. https://tinyurl.com/3cvpwm26

SpaceX’s Anthropic compute deal worth up to US$40 billion.

Anthropic could pay SpaceX up to US$40 billion over the next several years to use compute from data centers, but either company has the power to call off the deal early, SpaceX revealed when it filed for an initial public offering on Wednesday. SpaceX is receiving US$1.25 billion per month from Anthropic each month through May 2029, though either company can end the deal with 90 days’ notice, SpaceX’s IPO filing says. Anthropic is accessing compute from Colossus and Colossus II, the two gigantic data centers in Memphis built by xAI, the artificial intelligence company that SpaceX acquired in February. The deal will bring in much-needed revenue for SpaceX, which has been burning cash due primarily to xAI’s expenses, but raises significant questions about xAI’s commitment to developing its own Grok models. In the roughly three months since SpaceX acquired xAI, more than 50 researchers have left through firings, layoffs and voluntary departures. https://tinyurl.com/2smhdp7a

Twitter backers’ patience repaid with US$100 billion SpaceX stake.

In the months after Elon Musk closed on his US$44 billion purchase of Twitter Inc., there was a broad consensus that not only had he overpaid, but that he’d dragged some of the world’s best-known investors into a bad deal. Now backers including Larry Ellison, Andreessen Horowitz and Bill Ackman’s charitable foundation stand to earn a nearly 200% return on their equity investment. Through a series of favorable mergers, investors in the social-media platform now known as X own a stake in SpaceX that would be worth roughly US$100 billion if the rocket, AI and media company achieves a US$2 trillion valuation in its initial public offering, according to Bloomberg calculations. The gains for Twitter’s investors have come not from a business turnaround, but through a series of transactions directed by Musk that gave the shareholders stakes in more valuable companies. https://tinyurl.com/tnsnc9ur

Meta begins cutting 8,000 jobs.

Meta Platforms has begun notifying thousands of employees that they are being laid off, as it embarks on its latest effort to cut costs and offset the heavy investment in artificial intelligence. Meta had said last month it would lay off about 8,000 people on Wednesday, about 10% of its 78,000 employees. Meta began notifying employees in India, Singapore, Europe, and the US of the layoffs via emails sent at 4 a.m. in their respective local time zones, according to workers who received the notices. Separately, in a memo to employees on Monday, Meta’s chief human resources officer, Janelle Gale, said about 7,000 employees will be moved into a new division called Applied AI Engineering and other AI-focused initiatives. Some staff have already been reassigned, while others will be informed on Wednesday if they are included in the new teams, Gale said. The layoffs follow earlier reductions, including about 700 job cuts in March across social media, recruiting, sales, and Reality Labs, which develops the company’s hardware and wearables. In January, roughly 1,500 roles were also eliminated within the same division. https://tinyurl.com/st39uezx

Intuit lays off 17% of staff as revenue growth sinks to lowest level since 2024.

Intuit shares dropped around 14% in extended trading on Wednesday as the maker of QuickBooks and TurboTax reported revenue growth dipping to its slowest pace since 2024. Revenue in the fiscal third quarter, which ended April 30, climbed 10% from the previous year to US$8.6 billion, much less than the 17% year-over-year jump in revenue in the January quarter. The last time Intuit reported such a slow growth rate was in the October 2024 quarter. The company also lowered its fiscal full-year projection for TurboTax revenue to 7% growth year-over-year, down one percentage point from its earlier projection. Intuit said it revised the figures because fewer people filed federal taxes this year—presumably compared to last year’s tax season. Intuit stock had already fallen about 4% during regular trading hours after it said it would lay off 17% of staff, or about 3,000 people, to become what CEO Sasan Goodarzi said would be a “faster, leaner and more focused company” for the AI era. “As you know, we are very invested in AI and the tools that we use internally, which is what’s driving a lot of our efficiencies and margin expansion,” Goodarzi said. In another notable move, Intuit said in August it would begin charging customers based on the amount of AI features they use to automate tasks involving Intuit applications. That mirrors recent moves by other enterprise software firms seeking to preserve their profit margins. https://tinyurl.com/4bfhcm7c

Google and Blackstone to create TPU cloud provider.

Google and Blackstone are creating a cloud computing company that will rent out Google’s tensor processing units to artificial intelligence developers, according to a person with direct knowledge. Google has been pushing for many months to expand the reach of its TPUs, in an effort to compete more directly with Nvidia’s graphics processing units. Emerging cloud providers have declined to rent out Google’s TPUs—in large part because many of these so-called neoclouds rely on a close relationship with Nvidia. Google and Blackstone plan to announce the new company and a US$5 billion equity investment from Blackstone as soon as Monday evening. Google will be a minority equity owner in the business and will also provide the venture with TPU hardware. Longtime Google cloud executive Benjamin Treynor Sloss will serve as the new company’s chief executive officer. The new firm aims to bring 500 megawatts of TPUs online in 2027. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the Google and Blackstone joint venture. https://tinyurl.com/3dprw59a

Musk loses OpenAI lawsuit.

Jurors rejected Elon Musk’s claims against OpenAI, delivering a major victory to CEO Sam Altman in Silicon Valley’s biggest grudge match. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers agreed with the jury’s decision. The nine-member jury’s decision on Monday, following three weeks of testimony and legal arguments, came after just two hours of deliberation. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman and President Greg Brockman in 2015, had accused them of violating a charitable trust and unjustly enriching themselves when they transformed the AI lab from a charity into a largely for-profit company. He accused Microsoft, an early backer, of aiding and abetting the breach of charitable trust. The jury found, and the judge agreed, that Musk waited too long to bring his lawsuit. OpenAI’s lawyers had argued that Musk already knew—or could have found out—about the actions he claims were unjust by the time he posted on X in 2020 that “OpenAI is essentially captured by Microsoft.” The decision removes significant uncertainties that have clouded OpenAI’s future as it grapples with intensifying competition and prepares for an IPO that could come as soon as this year. Musk had been asking the court to compel OpenAI to unwind a restructuring last year that paved the way for the possible IPO, transfer of billions of dollars from its for-profit arm to its nonprofit and remove Altman from the nonprofit’s board. https://tinyurl.com/y3yxeuf2

Congress launches insider trading probe into Kalshi, Polymarket.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform opened an investigation into insider trading on Polymarket and Kalshi, warning that lawmakers may take action against the prediction markets. James Comer, the Republican chair of the committee, said the “growing pattern of insider trading activity on prediction market platforms indicates that Congressional action may be necessary.” In letters to Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan and Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, the committee requested documents from Polymarket and Kalshi asking how the companies verify their domestic and foreign account holders, monitor activity and enforce geographic restrictions. In a post on X, Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said the company had spent years building systems and technology to detect and enforce instances of insider trading and that the company looked forward to working with the committee. https://tinyurl.com/mr3pp993

GitHub says hackers breached company systems, stole data.

Hackers broke into GitHub’s internal systems and stole data from thousands of its internal repositories, the Microsoft-owned company disclosed Tuesday night. While GitHub said it didn’t find any evidence that customer data was stolen, the hackers were able to access over 3,800 of GitHub’s internal repositories where it stores its own code. The hacking group TeamPCP took credit for the breach Tuesday on hacking forums and offered to sell data that it claimed it had stolen from GitHub. Meanwhile, GitHub said Tuesday it was changing passwords and “critical secrets” to prevent hackers from breaching more of its data. The breach is the latest in a series of high-profile cyberattacks targeting big tech companies in recent months. It also comes after a slew of recent outages and technical bugs that have plagued GitHub and irritated big customers. GitHub said the breach occurred after hackers broke into an employee’s personal device using a vulnerability in an extension to VSCode, the open source application maintained by Microsoft that GitHub and other companies use to develop software. GitHub did not share details about the VSCode vulnerability but said it would publish a “fuller report” once it completed its investigation. https://tinyurl.com/2uu73ys4

Hackers have compromised dozens of popular open source packages in an ongoing supply-chain attack.

In an ongoing cyberattack, hackers have compromised several popular open source projects that software developers all over the world rely on. On Tuesday, cybersecurity firms StepSecurity and SafeDep warned of the latest wave of supply-chain attacks, which aim to compromise developers of popular open source projects and use that access to plant malicious updates that are pushed to users downstream. According to SafeDep, hackers took over the account of one developer and released over 630 malicious versions across 317 packages in about 20 minutes. The goal of the attack is to steal credentials for various services, including password managers, as a way to steal data and continue spreading the malware. Among the packages that the hackers compromised is Antv, a library made by Alibaba. In some cases, the hackers published malicious updates on GitHub, according to JFrog Security. This latest wave of attacks is part of a wider campaign targeting open source projects and the developers who use the code for their own projects. Researchers have dubbed the hacks “Mini Shai-Hulud,” after the attack followed a previous, more expansive hacking campaign. Last week, in another wave of attacks as part of the Mini Shai-Hulud attacks, hackers compromised the computers of two OpenAI employees after hacking the open source library TanStack. OpenAI was just one of several victims. https://tinyurl.com/4jyb89f2

Google unveils expanded lineup of AI shopping tools.

Google unveiled an expanded lineup of AI shopping tools Tuesday at its annual I/O developer conference, including a “Universal Cart” that allows users to add products from multiple retailers and sites across multiple Google products including search, Gmail, Gemini and YouTube. The cart will also research products that shoppers add, including looking for deals and flagging extra information about products, like if certain pieces of tech are compatible with each other. The cart also analyzes credit cards users have saved in their Google wallets and helps users find opportunities to earn rewards or points. Google also said it will be bringing AP2, a set of rules it developed to help standardize and govern agent-powered transactions, to its products in the coming months, including its new Gemini Spark agent that can complete tasks on users’ behalf, like making purchases, in the background. https://tinyurl.com/ywysetbn

IBM and U.S. Department of Commerce announce America’s first purpose-built quantum foundry, supported by proposed US$1 billion CHIPS award.

IBM and the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) announced a Letter of Intent (LOI) to build an American quantum chip foundry, securing the nation’s global quantum leadership and fueling the country’s growing quantum ecosystem. The CHIPS incentive from the DoC will support the research and development efforts of a new IBM company: Anderon, which will be America’s first pure-play quantum foundry. This initiative represents one of the most significant commitments by the U.S. Government to date in quantum R&D to position the United States to manufacture most of the world’s quantum wafers. In addition to the US$1 billion in CHIPS incentives provided by the DoC, IBM will contribute US$1 billion of cash into Anderon, along with IBM investing significant intellectual property, assets, and a skilled workforce, with additional investors expected as Anderon grows. Headquartered in Albany, New York as a standalone company, Anderon will operate as a state-of-the-art 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry. It will help the nation solidify its leadership at the center of a thriving new quantum industry that is estimated to generate up to US$850 billion in economic value by 2040 and spur American economic growth while also bolstering national security. https://tinyurl.com/ywud86vv

Alibaba unveils new AI chip as china accelerates adoption of domestic chips.

Alibaba Group’s semiconductor design unit on Wednesday unveiled a new chip that can be used to train and run AI models. The move comes as the Chinese government pushes to accelerate the adoption of homegrown AI chips to reduce the country’s dependence on Nvidia. Alibaba said the new AI chip, Zhenwu M890, delivers three times the performance of its predecessor. It is “exceptionally well-suited” for complex workloads that involve multiple AI agents working together, the company said. Domestic AI chip suppliers like Alibaba’s T-Head chip unit have an increasingly important role to play, as China tries to become more self-sufficient with key technologies such as semiconductors. Alibaba announced the new Zhenwu M890 chip at the annual Alibaba Cloud Summit conference on Wednesday. T-Head vice president Gao Hui, who gave a presentation at the conference, also unveiled the unit’s product roadmap for the next two years. It plans to release another new chip called Zhenwu V900 in the third quarter of 2027, followed by Zhenwu J900 in the third quarter of 2028, according to the roadmap Gao showed. T-Head is part of Alibaba’s broader effort to compete in all aspects of AI, from infrastructure to models to applications. On Wednesday, Alibaba also launched its latest large language model called Qwen3.7-Max, emphasizing its capabilities in coding and complex multi-step tasks. https://tinyurl.com/8a44rpzn

Sophic Insights – 01 Quantum (TSXV: ONE) – The Quantum-AI Convergence.

Quantum risk is no longer theoretical. From harvest-now-decrypt-later to AI privacy, the security upgrade cycle is already underway. This report highlights that quantum computing and AI together are driving a major, multi year shift in cybersecurity, creating a large, global, and policy driven market opportunity, especially in post-quantum cryptography (PQC) and privacy-preserving AI. The winners will be companies that can execute and deploy real solutions at scale. https://t.co/cvvjMzplWI

Sophic Client 01 Quantum Inc (ONE-TSXV, OONEF-OTCQB) – 01 Quantum: Productizing Post-Quantum Security.

01 Quantum Inc. is moving beyond theory, with real products, real partners, and early commercial traction in post-quantum cybersecurity across remote access, digital assets, and secure AI. This Sophic Insights Report moves from market backdrop to Company story, breaking down 01 Quantum’s products and positioning as a practical, implementation-focused post quantum cybersecurity company. https://t.co/8p8ZbwWigJ

Sophic Client Replenish Nutrients Holding Corp. (ERTH-CSE, VVIVF-OTC) Discusses Commercial Expansion and Licensing Activity.

In this interview, Neil Wiens, CEO and CTO of Replenish Nutrients Holding Corp. (CSE: ERTH) (OTC: VVIVF), discusses their biological fertilizer technology, company strategies for 2026, and upcoming catalysts at the Planet MicroCap Las Vegas 2026. Replenish Nutrients Holding Corp. will be presenting at the upcoming Planet MicroCap Las Vegas 2026 powered by MicroCapClub. https://tinyurl.com/bdfwzs82