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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 Investment News

June 01, 2025: Great Month, But Always One Tweet Away From Volatility

Last week, Dow Jones rose 1.6%, S&P 500 gained 1.9%, Nasdaq composite rose 2%. For the month, Dow Jones rose 3.9%, S&P 500 gained 6.15% (best May return in 35 years), and the Nasdaq was up almost 10% (largest monthly gain since November 2023). That said, tariff related headlines once again pressured markets on Friday. Chime is targeting a US$11B IPO valuation, while Shein is now considering a Hong Kong IPO after regulatory delays in London. Discord, anticipating an IPO, introduced “Orbs,” virtual rewards designed to boost ad engagement. SoftBank proposed a joint US$300B U.S.-Japan sovereign wealth fund to finance technology and infrastructure projects. Salesforce will acquire Informatica for US$8B to bolster its AI capabilities. Nvidia forecasted a US$8B revenue hit from stricter U.S.-China export controls, despite robust growth elsewhere. The U.S. government also recently ordered American vendors that sell software for chip design to obtain export licenses first before selling to China. Mary Meeker, the most famous internet analyst of the dot-com boom era, says AI is growing faster than anything that came before it, in a new 340 page report. Meta and Anduril partnered to create VR devices for the U.S. military, while Anthropic’s CEO warned AI could eliminate half of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years, urging preparedness from government and industry leaders. Billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya has a blunt warning about quantum computing being able to break common encryption much sooner than expected. In Canada, Bell plans to invest hundreds of millions to build six AI-focused data centres. Sophic client, Kraken Robotics reported Q1 results and reiterated its full-year guidance, expecting significant revenue and EBITDA margin expansion driven by its recent subsea LiDAR acquisition and new subsea manufacturing facility in Nova Scotia. Sophic client, American Aires, reported record Q1 revenue of $5.38M, up 164% year-over-year. Management anticipates profitability improvement in upcoming quarters, reaffirming 2025 revenue guidance of $28M–$32M, and adjusted EBITDA guidance of $2M loss to a $2M profit.

Invesment News in the Past Weeks

November 15, 2020

November 15, 2020

This week, we learnt some more details on ANT Financial’s IPO delays, as well as planned IPOs for Airbnb, DoorDash and Instacart (all likely benefiting from the COVID trade). In Canada, it was relatively quiet week on the funding front, but we expected continued activity in healthcare tech, and perhaps crypto related companies (we’ve already seen a couple), as Bitcoin quietly marches upwards.

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!