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Weekly Cache

Weekly Investment News and Analysis

Please see what we’ve been reading in technology and ESG related investing this week. Please feel free to send us what you’ve found interesting.

Latest Invesment News

October 01, 2023: Tech’s Horrible September

While Nasdaq closed last week up fractionally higher, September was its worst month in the year, as the index was down nearly 6%. Dow Jones fell 1.2% and S&P 500 lost 0.4% last week. OpenAI is seeking a new valuation of between US$80 billion to US$90 billion, roughly triple its level earlier this year. The startup, which is 49% owned by Microsoft, has told investors that it expects to reach US$1 billion in revenue this year and generate many billions more in 2024. CoreWeave, a cloud computing provider that’s among the hottest startups in the artificial intelligence race, is finalizing a minority stake sale that values the company at US$7 billion. CoreWeave was an early adopter of Nvidia Corp. graphics chips for data centers, getting ahead of a wave of demand for powerful processors to run artificial intelligence applications. Amazon has agreed to invest up to US$4 billion in AI startup Anthropic. iPhone designer Jony Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are in advanced talks with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to raise US$1 billion in capital to fund the creation of the “iPhone of artificial intelligence” that uses OpenAI’s artificial intelligence software, the Financial Times reported. In a complaint filed in federal court in Seattle Tuesday, the FTC and 17 states accused Amazon of engaging in a course of conduct to exclude rivals in online marketplace services and stifle competition. Nvidia’s France offices were raided by the country’s competition authority this week, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. In Canada, HS GovTech will be acquired for an all-cash consideration of $0.54, a ~150% premium. Canadian small cap tech names are beat up, and investors are beginning to notice. Shopify has invested in wholesale site Faire. The companies did not disclose the size of Shopify’s stake or the value of the deal.

Invesment News in the Past Weeks

April 10, 2022: Iconic Investors & Meme Lords Buy A Couple Tech Stocks

April 10, 2022: Iconic Investors & Meme Lords Buy A Couple Tech Stocks

Sophic Client GameSquare Esports (GSQ-CSE, GMSQF-OTC, Sophic Client) announces US$3.0 million Private Placement led by Goff Capital and the Jones Family and a new strategic investor to further strengthen the Company’s shareholder base. In a recent report, we examine, Sophic Client, Edge Total Intelligence (CTRL-TSXV) offerings as edgeTI’s software provides enterprises a single point of control software enabling the rapid coordination and execution of informed decisions. This is a US$23 billion industry, and edgeTI is establishing itself to grow in this industry. Shopify told employees on Thursday that it will raise all employees’ base salaries, The Information has learned. The salary increases will come into effect starting in July, according to a person familiar with the matter. The move follows The Information’s report that Shopify was suffering from staff defections, even as Shopify’s stock plunge this year has reduced the value of recent stock grants. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) today announced that it has invested US$425 million in VerSe Innovation Private Limited, one of India’s leading content technology platform companies. PokerStars and FanDuel join forces to strike major partnership deal with Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. Gartner forecasts global tech spending to hit US$4.4 trillion this year, up 4%. Buffett’s Berkshire reveals stake in HP; shares surge almost 10%. Twitter shares surge after disclosure Elon Musk has taken stake. Amazon, Alphabet and others are quietly rolling out drone delivery across America. Cash App discloses security breach impacting over 8 million users. Apple Pay surpasses Venmo and PayPal as teens’ favorite payment app, shows Piper Sandler survey. Meta Platforms’ financial arm, Meta Financial Technologies, has been exploring the creation of a virtual currency for the metaverse, the Financial Times reported.

November 01, 2020

November 01, 2020

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.

October 25, 2020

October 25, 2020

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.

October 18, 2020

October 18, 2020

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.

October 11, 2020

October 11, 2020

After around 15 years of covering Canadian technology stocks, we’re very encouraged to begin see an increasing number of high quality Canadian companies go public or consider going public, which enables average investors to benefit from innovation driven wealth creation. In this regard, we’ve recently seen news pertaining to BBTV, Cymax and Nuvei.

October 04, 2020

October 04, 2020

Last week saw healthy levels of financing across the Canadian tech ecosystem, in both public and private markets. South of the border, Roblox should be an interesting stock to watch out for. Newsflow seems to be focused more on regulatory issues, and the CEOs of Facebook, Google, Twitter are expected to testify to the U.S. Senate before the election.

September 27, 2020

September 27, 2020

IPO activity in the USA cooled a bit after a few heated weeks, while M&A kept chugging along. In Canada, publicly listed technology companies announed ~$85 million in bought deals.

September 20, 2020

September 20, 2020

It’s great to see Nuvei have a successful IPO on the TSX last week — we believe robust IPOs are a very important part of the Canadian public markets ecosystem, even as US capital markets rediscover SPACs. Canadian VC also reported strong activity.

September 13, 2020

September 13, 2020

Lots of activity in the Canadian VC space this past week, as well as Lightspeed’s NYSE debut. Sophic client, Kontrol (KNR-CSE) had positive news of another successful test of its Covid detection product, BioCloud.

September 6, 2020

September 6, 2020

We hope you’re enjoying the long weekend with your loved ones. Many high growth stocks pulled back on Thursday, and Friday to some extent – however, valuations still remain elevated. Interestingly a Financial Times piece on Friday suggested Softbank’s option trading could have been tech stocks higher over the summer.

August 30, 2020

August 30, 2020

Monday saw the one the highest number of SEC S-1 filings for high profile companies going public as we have seen in nearly fifteen years in capital markets. September, should be a very interesting month!

August 23, 2020

August 23, 2020

While the Tik-Tok drama continues to unfold, high profile companies including SpaceX, Robinhood, Airbnb, Ant Financial, Palantir move ahead to either raise capital or go public. Palantir also plans to move its headquarters from the Bay Area to Denver, which could aid the trend of tech companies being more widely located, which we believe is a tailwind for the Canadian tech ecosystem. For example, Odyssey Interactive’s founders previously worked in the United States but opted to establish the company in Canada, because of the strong startup ecosystem in Canada.