The IPO of leading Chinese humanoid maker Unitree today has been a major success, highlighting the growing investor enthusiasm surrounding the humanoid robotics industry. Unitree’s product portfolio spans bipedal humanoid robots capable of walking and manipulating objects with dexterous hands, as well as four-legged robots. The IPO attracted strategic investors, including AI startup DeepSeek, raised…
The U.S. has taken another significant step in extending its technological decoupling from China, this time targeting the rapidly emerging humanoid robotics industry. The Trump administration recently announced restrictions on the import of new foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots, citing national security concerns and reinforcing its broader strategy of securing the entire AI hardware ecosystem.…
The next battleground in the U.S.-China technology war may not be an AI chip. It may be the tiny optical transceivers that quietly connect thousands of those chips inside the world’s largest data centers. According to Reuters, the Trump administration and the Federal Communications Commission are preparing restrictions on Chinese-made optical transceivers over concerns they…
For nearly a decade, recovering an orbital rocket booster has been a capability associated with just one company. SpaceX made it routine. Blue Origin only recently joined the club. Now China has entered the conversation. Last week, the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, or CASC, successfully recovered the first stage of its new…
The past few weeks have been particularly challenging for AI infrastructure stocks, with the sector correcting by more than 20%. While the magnitude of the sell-off has been significant, we have witnessed similar corrections several times over the past three years, and each has ultimately been followed by a sharp recovery. We believe this episode…
Artificial intelligence is reshaping the software industry, but much of the economic value is accruing outside traditional enterprise software. Investors have increasingly focused on the infrastructure required to build and run AI systems, including semiconductors, cloud platforms and data center capacity, while much of the software layer itself, from foundation models to developer tools, is…
Last week, Tesla, Sunrun and Renew Home announced a landmark partnership to create what could become the largest virtual power plant (VPP) in the U.S. By combining Tesla Powerwall home batteries, Sunrun’s residential solar and storage systems, and millions of smart devices managed by Renew Home, the companies aim to aggregate more than 16 GW of flexible…
While Micron’s earnings and guidance last night were undeniably impressive—with revenue growth accelerating sharply in the +300% and gross margins approaching 90%—the most important takeaway, in our view, was the company’s expanded disclosure around its Strategic Customer Agreements (SCAs). These long-term agreements between memory manufacturers and hyperscalers, AI chip designers, and other large customers have…
The recent explosion of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, which severely damaged its launch pad infrastructure, has had important implications for the broader space industry. The incident is expected to delay New Glenn launches by several months and jeopardize the timeline of upcoming lunar missions, as well as deployment schedules for satellite operators such as…
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) may be approaching one of the most delicate balancing acts of the AI era: reconciling two objectives that increasingly appear to be at odds—shielding utility customers from soaring electricity costs while dramatically accelerating “speed-to-power” for the data centers that will underpin America’s AI ambitions. Recent actions by the…
According to Bloomberg, China is considering a plan to invest approximately $295 billion over the next five years in data center infrastructure to accelerate AI development. Beijing reportedly intends for state-owned telecom operators to build and operate much of this capacity while sourcing at least 80% of the underlying technology—including AI accelerators—from domestic suppliers. If…
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman unveiled this week one of the most ambitious lunar strategies since the Apollo era, outlining a long-term vision centered on a permanent human presence on the Moon, large-scale lunar infrastructure, and the transformation of the lunar south pole into a strategic economic and scientific hub. The announcement marks a major expansion…
The race to build the “brains” of humanoid robots—and to solve the long-standing challenge of dexterous manipulation—is accelerating, and one of the most closely watched new entrants is Genesis AI. The Paris- and California-based robotics company recently introduced GENE-26.5, a large-scale robotics foundation model designed to help machines better understand, manipulate, and interact with the…
Even if there’s been a lot of excitement around AI in the last years, there’s been a very limited number of high-profile IPOs in the U.S. given that the market is dominated by a handful of players in computing (Microsoft, Amazon…), models/software (OpenAI, Anthropic…) and computing hardware (Nvidia, AMD). News that Cerebras, a US-based AI…
Semiconductors have long been a cornerstone of the space industry—a highly technology-intensive sector requiring a wide range of power and radio-frequency components to operate. This dependency is becoming even more pronounced as satellites evolve to deliver high-speed broadband and, increasingly, direct-to-device connectivity. Conversely, the space industry is now emerging as a major growth engine for…
Initial earnings from ABB, GE Vernova, and Korea-based LS Electric point to a clear and accelerating trend: exceptionally strong order momentum across electrification and power infrastructure, driven primarily by data center demand and reinforced by powerful structural tailwinds. Order intake across the sector has been particularly striking. GE Vernova reported a 71% year-on-year surge in…
Bloom Energy, the second largest holding in our Powering AI portfolio, has announced an expanded partnership with Oracle under which it will deploy up to 2.8 GW of its fuel cell systems (including the 1.2 GW already contracted) to support Oracle’s AI and cloud infrastructure. The deal could generate more than $8 billion product revenue…
For years, AI infrastructure was simple: GPUs ruled, and everything else followed. CPUs, memory, and networking existed, but as background plumbing, not strategy. That perception is changing. A structural shift is bringing CPUs back to the center. Not as legacy hardware from a pre-AI era, but as the foundation for the next wave: reinforcement learning…
Over the past few weeks, a series of announcements from large technology companies and startups suggest that the race to build commercially viable humanoid robots is accelerating. One of the clearest signals comes from Amazon. For the e-commerce giant, humanoids represent a natural next step beyond fixed automation as labor constraints persist across logistics operations.…
Memory stocks such as SK Hynix, Micron Technology and SanDisk—among the best performers in the AI space over the past 12 months—came under pressure yesterday following reports that Google is preparing to roll out its TurboQuant data compression algorithm for AI inference. TurboQuant enables more efficient storage of data in the key-value (KV) cache—the memory…
According to a WSJ report, Jeff Bezos is in the process of raising up to $100 billion for a new investment vehicle aimed at acquiring companies across major industrial sectors—such as defense, aerospace, and semiconductors—and modernizing them through the deployment of artificial intelligence. This initiative is said to be closely linked to Bezos’ AI venture,…
Satellite imaging specialist Planet Labs delivered a strong set of FY results last night, showing for the first time $15 million positive EBITDA and positive free cash flow, well ahead of market expectations. The company also surprised investors with its 2026/27 outlook, guiding for a continued positive EBITDA despite recent growth initiatives. Amid robust demand for…
OpenClaw, an AI agent builder, has surged in popularity in China thanks to its ability to autonomously perform tasks on behalf of users—organizing and responding to emails, drafting work reports, and preparing slide decks. Its versatility has prompted many Chinese tech companies to offer OpenClaw services on their cloud platforms, while local governments and enterprises…
For years, humanoid robots were largely confined to research labs and flashy demonstrations—such as Optimus serving drinks at a Tesla event in 2024. That is now rapidly changing, thanks to major advances in both artificial intelligence and hardware. In particular, one of the most difficult technical hurdles in robotics—dexterous manipulation and the ability of robotic hands to…
For decades, copper carried the internet on its back. It threaded through server racks, snapped into Ethernet ports, linked chips to switches, and did it all with quiet dependability. Electrons racing through metal powered backplanes, patch cords, and direct-attach cables. Copper was cheap, familiar, and fast enough. Then generative AI changed the definition of “fast…
We are launching our Powering AI strategy in EUR (with USD hedging). While the USD trajectory has been a source of concern, the outlook for the Powering AI theme has never been stronger. Data center capex continues to surprise on the upside: recent hyperscaler announcements point to roughly $700 billion of spending in 2026, up…
The AI boom has quietly turned electricity into the most valuable input in tech, and the cloud giants are discovering an uncomfortable truth: the grid is not infinite, patient, or cheap. For years, hyperscalers treated power as a background problem, something to hash out with utilities while the real innovation happened in chips and code.…
In a report published 18 months ago, we warned that “AI challenges were emerging and posing fundamental risks to entire segments of the software industry, suggesting that one would need to be very careful when investing in the sector.” Since then, we have remained underweight enterprise software—and that stance has paid off, with our AI…
SpaceX has just announced its blockbuster merger with xAI. While Elon Musk publicly frames the move as part of his long-standing ambition to take data centers to space, there is also a clear and pragmatic financial rationale. xAI has been cash-hungry since inception and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, whereas SpaceX is reportedly…
As we expected, the concerns that emerged in the final months of 2025 and weighed on the AI trade are rapidly fading. Early earnings reports this season have shifted the focus back to what matters most: impressive growth and expanding margins. And worth noting, the equity rally is broadening. While our core AI portfolio is…
In recent weeks, Nvidia has announced a series of investments with a clear common thread: AI inference, i.e. the running of AI applications. The company signed a $20 billion technology licensing deal with Groq, a specialist in inference chips; took a stake in Baseten, a fast-growing startup providing inference infrastructure for AI applications; and, more surprisingly, acquired a 2.9%…
Bloomberg reported yesterday that Meta and EssilorLuxottica are considering doubling annual production capacity of their Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses to 20 million units by year-end, up from 10 million currently, with the option to scale further to 30 million units if demand warrants. This move, which points to strong demand for AI-powered wearables, follows Meta’s…
Over the past 12–18 months, Tech giants and U.S. utilities have ramped up investments in alternative power sources—particularly nuclear energy and on-site natural gas fuel cells—to address the growing power needs of data centers. Recent deal announcements (Meta with Vistra/Oklo/TerraPower and AEP with Bloom Energy) underscore an accelerating trend, reinforcing Powering AI and Nuclear Power…
For the first time in years, memory has become interesting again (see here and here). Once the most predictable component in a computer’s bill of materials, it has quietly turned into a global bottleneck and artificial intelligence sits at the center of the shift. The disruption begins with high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, a premium version…
Marvell’s $3.25 billion buyout of Celestial AI isn’t just another semiconductor acquisition. It’s a wager—big, loud, and physics-driven—on the idea that the future of artificial intelligence won’t run on copper wires at all. To bankroll the bet, Marvell unloaded its automotive Ethernet division to Infineon for $2.5 billion, then pivoted hard into the fast-forming world…
Meta’s reported spending cuts in its Metaverse division—reportedly as high as 30%—combined with the high-profile hire of Apple’s former head of design, Alan Dye, and its recent push into AI glasses, suggest that the company is rapidly reallocating resources away from VR (Quest headsets) and virtual worlds (Horizon Worlds) toward AI-powered wearables. This pivot should…
The rationale for launching our Powering AI strategy 18 months ago was that the sudden and massive acceleration in electricity demand would force utilities to sharply increase their investments in power generation and transmission, providing a powerful tailwind for equipment suppliers and engineering firms. This capex upside is now becoming clearer, as several major electric…
The recent correction in AI equities increasingly looks like the two major sell-offs of the past 18 months (February–March this year and July-August 2024), suggesting that we are more likely in a healthy profit-taking phase than in the early stages of a bear cycle. The severity, speed, and magnitude are strikingly similar, with AI and…
Recent capex guidance from hyperscalers has once again been impressive, underscoring the sustained momentum in AI data center buildouts. However, the next phase of this investment cycle will hinge increasingly on monetization — turning AI capabilities into scalable, revenue-generating products. In the past few days, both OpenAI and Microsoft have taken significant steps in that…
Amazon is racing toward a future shaped by automation, but it has not forgotten the humans still on its payroll. Its latest experiment, a pair of smart glasses for delivery drivers, shows how the company aims to boost efficiency without replacing every worker with a machine. The glasses automatically scan packages and provide turn by…
Just months after President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders aimed at reigniting the U.S. nuclear energy sector and initiating the construction of 10 new reactors by 2030, U.S. companies are already moving rapidly on this front. Two major announcements in the last couple of days underscore that momentum: Clean energy developer Brookfield…
According to Bloomberg, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to grant expedited reviews for data-center grid connections. Under the draft rule, reviews would be capped at 60 days, compared with the years such approvals currently take. If adopted, the measure would mark another step in the Trump administration’s…
Data centers are evolving at breakneck speed. Artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) are pushing power demands to new heights, with next generation AI clusters requiring nearly a megawatt per rack. Traditional alternating current (AC) distribution systems, built for lower loads, are buckling under these demands. Multiple power conversions, bulky cabling, and energy losses…
Even though building new nuclear or gas-fired plants and expanding solar and wind capacity will be essential to address the long-term power challenge posed by data centers, these initiatives won’t come online fast enough to meet short-term electricity demand. In the meantime, transitory power solutions are needed — and fuel cells are increasingly emerging as…
Not so long ago, making a satellite phone call from a remote corner of the planet was an ordeal. You had to lug around a brick-sized device, angle it precisely toward the sky, and pray for a faint signal. Even then, the connection was often scratchy, and the bills were exorbitant, turning a simple conversation…
According to the Wall Street Journal, Electronic Arts is close to a $50 billion take-private deal led by a consortium including notably Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). If confirmed, this would mark another milestone in the ongoing consolidation of the gaming industry, following Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision and Take-Two’s…
Microsoft announced yesterday that it has been testing a new chip cooling technology based on microfluidics, which it says removes heat up to three times more effectively than today’s data center liquid cooling standard, cold plates that are placed on top of chips. The approach channels liquid coolant directly into the processor through microscopic, vein-like…
Yesterday, Nvidia announced a $5 billion investment in Intel, alongside a joint development agreement that will allow both companies to break into markets they previously couldn’t reach. In the PC segment, Nvidia dominates discrete GPUs for workstations and gaming, but laptops have always been out of reach. With roughly 150 million units sold annually, this…
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated yesterday at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s annual conference that the United States is “furiously at work” to rebuild its nuclear fuel supply chain and called for a significant increase in strategic uranium reserves. Data from the IAEA highlight the urgency: U.S. uranium inventories cover only about 14 months…
In recent weeks, awareness has grown that water is becoming both a major challenge for data center developers and a major opportunity for water technology companies—suggesting the water theme could emerge as a derivative play on AI and further boost our portfolio performance (up 18% YTD, largely outperforming all water funds/ETFs). A clear example came…
Nebius, which rents out AI infrastructure, has announced a landmark $17.4 billion agreement with Microsoft over five years, potentially ramping to $19.4 billion. Under the deal, Nebius will deliver dedicated capacity to Microsoft from its new New Jersey data center. This represents a transformational win for Nebius, a significant position in both our AI and…
We have long argued that SpaceX is on track to disrupt the global telecom market. Yesterday, the company took a decisive step in that direction with the announced $17B acquisition of EchoStar’s 50 MHz S-band spectrum in the US along with its global spectrum licenses. SpaceX’s Starlink initially focused on providing broadband internet to underserved…
Cameco announced last night a cut to its production guidance for the McArthur River mine, one of the world’s largest and highest-grade uranium deposits. Output is now expected at 14–15 million lbs in 2025, down from the previous 18 million lbs target, as operations were hampered by development delays and the timing of ground freezing.…
The software sector has remained a minefield for investors this year, in line with our scenario (see our June 2024 report). So far, only two clear winners of the AI revolution have emerged—Microsoft and Palantir, both core holdings in our portfolios—while many other software vendors face the risk of being disrupted by AI. That said,…
Ecolab has announced plans to acquire Ovivo’s electronics division for $1.8 billion, a strategic move designed to bolster its position in the fast-growing semiconductor water technology market. The transaction will create a robust, integrated platform capable of delivering advanced circular water management solutions to microelectronics manufacturers—helping them significantly reduce freshwater usage while maintaining high output…
If the Tech industry has reached new highs in recent weeks, the cybersecurity sector has encountered some turbulence with Palo Alto’s acquisition of CyberArk raising some concerns about the need for large-scale M&A to sustain growth and Fortinet’s earnings commentary and soft Q3 outlook in early August weighing on the group and dragging down peers.…
According to The Wall Street Journal, Palo Alto Networks is in advanced talks to acquire identity and access management leader CyberArk in a deal exceeding $20 billion. This potential acquisition would mark a strategic leap for Palo Alto. First, it aligns with the company’s ongoing “platformization” strategy by extending its reach beyond network, cloud, and…
The largest U.S. electric capacity auction, run by grid operator PJM— which serves roughly 20% of the U.S. population — cleared at $329.17/MW-day last night. That’s a 22% increase over last year’s record and well above market expectations. PJM’s capacity auctions determine how much electric utilities will be paid in exchange for committing to provide…
We’ve long argued that we’re still in the early innings of the AI infrastructure buildout and the announcements at last week’s Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit confirmed just how early we are. President Trump unveiled a massive $92 billion investment package from the private sector focused on AI and energy infrastructure in Pennsylvania, signaling the…
Constellation Energy, the largest operator of nuclear power plants in the U.S., announced yesterday that its Three Mile Island / Crane nuclear facility in Pennsylvania—shut down in 2019 for economic reasons—will restart operations in 2027, nearly a year ahead of schedule. As a reminder, Constellation disclosed in September last year that it would bring the…
Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity firm whose investment focus is software and cybersecurity, announced last week the completion of fundraising for various buyout funds totaling more than $34 billion. Considering that Thoma Bravo has been a major M&A predator of listed cybersecurity midcaps in the last couple of years with five acquisitions in a…
After Amazon and Microsoft last year, Meta has become the third hyperscaler to secure a long-term nuclear power supply agreement to support its AI infrastructure. Starting in June 2027, Meta will purchase the full output of Constellation Energy’s Clinton nuclear plant in Illinois—a facility that had previously been slated for closure—under a 20-year deal. This…
On Friday, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders designed to reignite the U.S. nuclear energy sector. These orders instruct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to streamline the licensing process and cut regulatory red tape for new reactors and power plants—a timely move as U.S. electricity demand is forecast to reach record highs in…
In line with President Trump’s policy, the US House of Representatives yesterday passed a budget bill that basically kills the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s clean energy agenda and a key source of subsidies for renewable energy projects over the past few years. While the original draft proposed a gradual phase-out…
Google has just unveiled a series of partnerships with leading eyewear brands—including Warby Parker, Kering Eyewear, Korean fashion label Gentle Monster, and Chinese manufacturer Xreal—to develop AI-powered smart glasses. The move follows the unexpected success of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which have sold over 2 million units since their 2023 debut, with EssilorLuxottica, owner of…
While the strong start to Switch 2 preorders has captured much of the spotlight, several other key developments in the video game industry have emerged in recent days—developments that bode well for the revenue and earnings outlook of game publishers. Notably, the industry appears to be moving toward broad price increases for game titles. Both…
Machine identity has emerged as a major growth opportunity for the cybersecurity industry lately, specifically for identity & access management specialists. Machine identity refers to a unique digital credential assigned to non-human entities, ensuring secure interactions between machines and allowing only trusted systems to access and exchange information. Historically, this term has included a wide…
Since announcing earlier this month the release details for the Switch 2, Nintendo has had to face several headwinds, including negative reactions to the high price of the console and game titles in the US and Europe ($450/ EUR450 and $70-90, respectively) that cast some doubts about consumer demand, the tariff drama that could have…
After the latest tariff twists and chips export restrictions to China, initial earnings in the AI space were widely expected. They didn’t disappoint, with both Taiwan Semi and Siemens Energy releasing strong quarterly figures and either maintaining or exceeding full-year expectations. Taiwan Semi, the leading maker of chips whose growth has been buoyed in recent…
It’s been a turbulent few weeks, with tariff uncertainty fueling broader concerns about the macroeconomic outlook and, specifically, about the AI spending environment. Even if semiconductors were initially expected to be spared from tariffs, the prospect of an economic downturn affecting the core businesses of major hyperscalers—such as declining advertising revenues at Google and Meta,…
At last week’s GTC conference, Nvidia provided a glimpse of its upcoming AI chips, including the Rubin Ultra GPU, set to launch in late 2026. This next-generation AI accelerator is expected to consume up to 1.8kW per unit and 600kW per rack, a significant jump from previous models. For comparison, the current GB200 draws 1.2kW…
Almost a year after initial discussions, Google is finally acquiring the privately-held cloud cybersecurity company Wiz for a staggering $33 billion, marking the largest deal in the industry to date, surpassing the $28 billion Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk from two years ago. In recent years, Tech giants have been intensifying efforts to strengthen their cybersecurity…
In recent days, quantum computing has seen significant progress, with Microsoft and D-Wave announcing groundbreaking developments. As detailed in a previous report, a major hurdle in quantum computing has always been the decay of qubits, which leads to coherence loss and computational errors. Indeed, creating qubits involves producing particles that can be electronically controlled, which…
In recent days, SpaceX’s Starlink announced partnerships with two of India’s leading telecom giants, Airtel and Jio, to provide broadband internet services to even the most remote and rural regions of the country. This marks a significant step as Starlink seems poised to finally break into the Indian internet market, the second largest in the…
Another week, another report about the need to enhance the electric power infrastructure in the U.S. with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the local grid, estimating that the state would need the equivalent of 30 additional nuclear plants by 2030 to meet its electricity needs. Meanwhile, PJM, the largest electricity grid operator in…
Alibaba, China’s leading cloud computing platform, impressed investors with a sharp acceleration in cloud revenue growth to +13% year-on-year, up from 7% in the previous quarter and 3% above expectations, driven by triple-digit AI growth. The real standout, however, was Alibaba’s $4.3 billion quarterly capex, marking a 300% year-on-year surge and 80% quarter-on-quarter growth. The…
PJM, the largest electricity grid operator in the U.S., serving 13 states including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland, has received federal approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to fast-track the review of up to 50 new power plant projects. This decision follows President Donald Trump’s national energy emergency declaration and addresses growing concerns…
Palantir, the largest position in both our AI and Cybersecurity portfolios, impressed again last night with revenue growth accelerating for the sixth quarter in a row to 36% (from 30%) and a FY25 revenue growth guidance of 31%, both figures coming 5-10% ahead of expectations. The strong top-line performance sparked another significant margin leverage, with…
The initial panic triggered by DeepShitSeek is starting to subside as more information comes to light. Recent reports indicate that the true cost of their training process was closer to $500 million, not the $6 million initially claimed. Additionally, it appears that DeepSeek’s LLM performance isn’t as groundbreaking as first suggested, with revelations that the…
The rise of the Chinese AI assistant DeepSeek to the top of the iPhone download charts has sent shockwaves through global markets—and, more specifically, the entire AI value chain. The app’s AI model is widely regarded as highly competitive with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other leading models, all while being significantly less expensive to train and…
Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Meta, which successfully launched at the end of 2023 the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, is working on a new generation of wearable devices that are scheduled to ship this year. That includes smart Oakley glasses aimed at athletes and high-end glasses – code-named Hypernova – whose design is closer to the…
As promised during his campaign, President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency following his inauguration and signed several executive orders aimed at boosting domestic fossil fuel production while reversing many of the clean energy policies from the Biden era. Trump, along with key cabinet members such as Doug Burgum, the newly appointed Secretary of…
It’s been a week full of exciting developments in the world of gaming. While Nintendo is expected to unveil the Switch 2 in coming weeks and to start shipping it in coming months, leaks have already begun to surface, and some accessories for the new console were even showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES)…
Synapse Invest was founded in 2019 with the mission of offering a diverse range of thematic investment products centered around innovation. Our journey began with the launch of our first Actively Managed Certificates (AMCs) in the closing weeks of 2019, and we are now proud to celebrate more than five years of consistent growth and…
Debates about whether we are the peak of the AI infrastructure cycle or close to the peak are popping up on a regular basis as investors are trying to figure out when the inevitable growth slowdown for companies exposed to it (chips, networking) will happen. Broadcom’s latest earnings and recent press reports about xAI spending…
In contrast to classical computers that rely on binary bits and which can have only two states (zero or one), quantum computers rely on the ability of quantum bits, or qubits, to exist in a superposition of both states at the same time. This oddity of quantum physics allows quantum computers to perform certain calculations…
We have been highlighting for months that, even if deploying new solar/wind capacity and building/reopening nuclear plants are key to tackling the power challenge arising from data centers in the medium and long term, these initiatives are unlikely to come online fast enough to handle short-term extra electricity demand. Accordingly, transitory solutions to fill the…
While most software companies, from the small ones (C3.ai, MongoDB…) to the large ones (Adobe, ServiceNow, Salesforce…), are now wannabe AI companies, Palantir is the real deal in our view. The company, known for its software products used by governments/military around the world, has developed over the years an AI platform (AIP) that is quickly…
GE Vernova kicked off the earnings season in style for the electrification/powering AI theme last week, with two of its three main units delivering impressive results. The group’s Power unit (generation equipment) recorded a significant +470bp margin expansion to 11.9% and 34% bookings growth, while the Electrification unit (grid equipment) grew 22% and boasted a…
After Microsoft, that is financing the restart of an idle reactor, Amazon and Google just made the headlines by announcing that they both will bet on a very promising technology, small modular reactors or SMRs. The former (which also acquired earlier this year a data center powered by an adjacent nuclear power plant) will partner…
The upcoming earnings season could be a bit noisy for the cybersecurity players, as violence escalation in the Middle East is likely to have hampered project timelines and delays product innovations in Israel where many cybersecurity firms are located and/or have large R&D teams. It’s probably no coincidence that Q3 VC funding in cybersecurity startups…
Even if there’s been a lot of excitement around AI in the last two years, there’s been a very limited number of pure play IPOs given that the market is dominated by a handful of players in computing (Microsoft, Amazon…), models/software (OpenAI, Anthropic…) and computing hardware (Nvidia, AMD). News that Cerebras, a US-based AI chip…
On Friday, US electric utility Constellation announced the restart of its Crane nuclear plant, that had been shut down in 2019 for economic reasons, along with a 20-year power supply agreement with Microsoft. The Tech giant will then secure 835 MW of power over 20 years to supply its data centers in the PJM Interconnection,…
Just months after the US Senate passed the ADVANCED Act, a landmark legislation designed to ease the permitting process for nuclear reactors and reduce costs and construction times (see our previous report), various US administrations are moving fast on the nuclear topic. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) indeed exempted Kairos Power from a full environmental…
Earlier this year, Google unveiled an eye-popping text-to-video games model called Genie that allowed to build basic playable games in 2D based on a short description. Six months on, AI in video gaming has made significant advances with gaming giants Roblox and Tencent presenting in recent days their own Generative AI technology that now allows to…
Despite recent concerns around a softening macro, AI spending fatigue and Nvidia’s Blackwell slight delay, the second part of the year and early 2025 are actually shaping up well for the Tech industry. Oracle’s just released FQ1 numbers were highly encouraging and suggested that AI training in data centers remains buoyant, with the company claiming…
Even if cybersecurity remains a top IT priority for most organizations (along with AI, obviously) and, accordingly, keeps growing fast, two events affecting two of the largest cybersecurity vendors have weighed down on investor sentiment this year: Palo Alto’s aggressive pricing policy, fueling concerns about the company’s short-term outlook and potential industry-wide discounting initiatives; and,…
If one needed further evidence that we are heading towards a growing supply/demand imbalance for uranium, last week’s news flow provided it. Kazatompron, Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium miner (and the world’s largest), announced (again) a cut to its 2025 production forecast due to continued sulphuric acid shortages and delays in construction works at new deposits. The company…
Chinese video game Black Myth: Wukong, an adaptation of the 16th-century Chinese tale “Journey to the West”, has made the headlines this week as it became an instant global hit, claiming more than 1 million concurrent players on gaming platform Steam within an hour of its Tuesday release and 2.2 million players by Wednesday (without…
Despite all the recent tumult in Tech equities recently, optical networking stocks such as Fabrinet and Coherent are quietly nearing or breaking their highs as earnings confirm that a new spending cycle on optical gear from data centers is on track. Last night, Fabrinet reported Q4 revenue growth of 15%, 3% above expectations. If these…
With AI electricity consumption surging and utilities starting to have difficulties meeting demand, both cloud giants and utilities are actively looking at solutions to tackle the power challenge. Deploying new solar/wind capacity and building nuclear reactors (or reopening idle ones) are clearly part of the agenda. But these initiatives also represent a multi-year effort, suggesting…
Moore’s law states that the density of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. This empirical law has allowed the manufacturing of cheaper, faster, smaller and more efficient electronic devices for decades. But the pace of this trend is clearly slowing down and the techniques to miniaturize transistors are getting exponentially…
Nokia just announced the acquisition of Infinera (a Big Data portfolio company) for $2.3 billion, representing a 28% premium. Infinera, which is a supplier of optical semiconductors and networking solutions, will allow Nokia to increase the scale of its optical networks business and to raise its exposure to Internet/data center customers that account for roughly…
It’s been a tough H1 for software stocks, which have lagged hardware/semiconductors names by 20-30% on average. While expectations built up last year about the revenue opportunity for many software companies shipping new products with built-in AI, the reality caught up during the latest earnings season with the likes of Salesforce, MongoDB, Workday, Cloudflare and…
The US gave a major boost to its nuclear industry yesterday as the Senate passed the ADVANCED (Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy) Act with overwhelming bipartisan support, and as the DoE announced it would fund up to $900 million to support the deployment of small modular reactors (SMRs). The ADVANCED Act is a…
The 2024 edition of the Computex – a Taipei-based electronics show where many Asian companies are usually showcasing their latest motherboards, PC power supplies or laptops – turned into an AI festival last week with a flurry of non-Asian companies taking the stage to pitch their roadmaps, new chips and systems not only for AI…
It’s been an eventful week for the high performance computing and data center industry as many chip makers, including Nvidia and AMD, and data center suppliers announced new products and architectures during the Computex show in Taiwan. Among the flurry of announcements, we view Super Micro’s introduction of liquid-cooled AI racks and bullish expectations about…
There has been a lot of talk lately about the implications of surging AI usage. While the focus has been on electric power consumption, the water intensity of data centers should also emerge as a major challenge going forward. Indeed, AI is catalyzing a shift towards power-hungry “monster chips” that are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain…
The last couple of weeks have been highly supportive for the nuclear industry, confirming that companies in the uranium/nuclear ecosystem are entering into a new era of growth. It is indeed becoming evident that AI is going to drive electricity demand to new heights with the US Department of Energy undersecretary for infrastructure recently commenting…
There have been signs of improving activity lately on the two leading Metaverse platforms, Roblox and Epic. While the former posted growth in average daily active users in a 17-22% range in recent quarters, the latter opened its Fortnite virtual world to major brands Lego and Disney that have or are in the process of…
Even if it’s a decades-old industry, video games remain an incredibly young business that stands at the forefront of new technologies including, obviously, AI. Since the beginning of the year, AI has been all about multimodal models and notably text-to-video, with OpenAI revealing its generative model Sora. But Google pushed the envelope of what’s possible,…
After some panic selling in recent days sparked notably by the absence of a Super Micro preannouncement, it looks like investor worries could start to ease following a set of strong quarterly figures and encouraging comments from Tesla, Vertiv and Texas Instruments. One of the highlights in the Tesla report was the major ramp-up of…
The disruption caused by Generative AI is not only deeply impacting the Tech industry and (soon) almost any economic activity but it will also have geopolitical, environmental, and energetic consequences. Since the early 2000s, cloud computing has rapidly grown to become the dominant IT platform, delivering any type of digital and/or communication service around the…
Reports have surfaced in the last couple of days about the concerted attempts of large Tech companies including Intel, Qualcomm and Google to break Nvidia’s dominance in data center AI chips by creating an open-source software platform on which developers can build AI models and apps. Indeed, Nvidia’s monopoly on the booming AI training segment…
A lot has been said in the last couple of days about the impressive performances of Nvidia’s latest family of chips, Blackwell. But one thing that has gone largely unnoticed is Nvidia’s shift towards liquid cooling for the first time for the high-end version of its next-generation DGX server subsystem, SuperPOD, that is built on…
At its semi-annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC), Nvidia showcased its latest server-class GPU family, called Blackwell, offering a jump in both computing power and bandwidth and, most importantly, a significant increase in integrated memory. As mentioned in our July 2023 article, memory is the main bottleneck in the training of large GenAI models. As data…
Even if data is widely considered as the oil of the 21st century, it has been largely under-monetized until now. As an illustration, OpenAI developed ChatGPT with massive amounts of data, free of charge… But data-rich companies, such as social media, have taken notice and the situation is rapidly evolving with companies including X and Reddit…
The cybersecurity sector had a rough ride last week as Palo Alto Networks (a portfolio company), one of the industry leaders, announced an underwhelming billings guidance for both the current quarter (only +2-4%, after +16% in CQ4) and the full year (+10-11% vs +16-17% previously). Amid healthy cybersecurity spending, Palo Alto’s figures clearly came as…
The stellar rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence continues to shake up the whole IT industry. At the end of last week, the world’s largest semiconductor foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) and the world’s second largest memory maker, SK Hynix, announced a new alliance around the development of AI chips. This news, which has gone almost unnoticed,…
We commented last month that video game maker Epic’s legal victory against Google in its antitrust lawsuit was likely to have serious implications for the app store duopoly and for the mobile gaming industry. As both Apple and Google generally charge commissions of as much as 30% to app developers who have few other options,…
After an initial surge driven by consumer curiosity and “better for you” credentials, plant-based meat growth has stalled as consumers’ expectations in terms of taste, texture, price or degree of processing have not been met. Beyond Meat’s revenue have therefore been declining for six straight quarters. Amid this challenging demand environment, the business models of…
UK-based Darktrace kicked off the cybersecurity earnings season with a robust set of figures and a guidance upgrade, giving confidence that the recent rally in security stocks is sustainable as fundamentals improve. In H1 (calendar H2), Darktrace delivered 27% revenue growth, 3% above expectations, with an EBITDA margin above 19% (100-200bps above consensus) and raised…
This morning, the Chinese administration issued new draft rules for online games aiming to limit spending and tackle game addiction. While the document lacks details, the new rules would introduce spending limits (prohibition of high-priced transactions, recharge limits…) and prohibit certain user engagement methods (rewards for daily log-in and first-time/multiple purchases). We believe that the…
Two days ago, AMD unveiled its long-awaited server-class GPU chip called the Instinct MI300X. This chip is positioned to be a direct competitor to the successful H100, Nvidia’s current Generative AI workhorse. As GenAI models keep on growing in size, memory and the way to access it represent one of the key elements of focus…
Take-Two, one of the largest positions in both our Metaverse and Gaming certificates, is now expected to release in the next couple of weeks the highly anticipated trailer for the next chapter in the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) video game franchise, GTA VI. For those who are not familiar with the franchise, GTA is an…
The Who’s Who of High-Performance Computing (HPC) is currently gathering in Colorado, US for the annual SuperComputing conference (SC23). Halfway through the conference, one trend is pretty clear: the whole IT industry is all in on Generative AI, starting from the chip designers up to the large system builders. Nvidia teased its upcoming server-class GPU…
Driven by the growing awareness prompted by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, global sales of nutraceuticals have seen a substantial upsurge over the last few years. Nutraceuticals are defined as foods that combine the benefits of both nutrients and pharmaceuticals. They are generally categorized into two primary categories: Dietary supplements: vitamins, minerals, enzymes… Functional…
During its recent earnings conference, security and edge computing infrastructure provider Cloudflare highlighted the AI inference opportunity, stating that it has a pipeline of customers (large and small) “interested in putting hundreds of billions of inference tasks on its infrastructure each month” and that it will have rolled out inference optimized GPUs in 100+ of…
Chip equipment makers have been hit in recent days and weeks by the intensification of export controls to China and by order delays as manufacturers are experiencing troubles in building their new fabs. Most notably, Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC)’s $40 billion Arizona plant is running behind schedule. Accordingly, Dutch equipment giant ASML delivered this morning a…
With the emergence of a new generation of weight loss drugs poised to reshape the healthcare industry, the landscape of consumer diets may also be on the cusp of a massive transformation, sending ripples through the food and beverage sectors. New weight loss drugs known under the acronym of GLP-1, embodied by Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic…
Niantic, the developer of massive mobile hit Pokemon Go, released in recent weeks in collaboration with Japanese game maker Capcom its newest location-based and augmented reality (AR) title, Monster Hunter Now. The game lets users explore the world and achieve missions while fighting gigantic monsters, the AR technology allowing to blend the digital monsters with…
There’s been a lot of attention in recent months about the computing power requirements of Artificial Intelligence and the rise of various pieces of hardware (GPUs, ASICs, TPUs…) used to train massive data models. Surprisingly, there’s been much less hype around software and, specifically, around data science and analytics software that appears as important as…
Eighteen months after initial reports of M&A talks, networking giant Cisco announced the takeover of data analytics and cybersecurity software company Splunk in a massive $28 billion deal (both Cisco and Splunk are portfolio companies). The 32% premium is in line with recent sector transactions and the valuation multiple (6x revenue) is in the low-end…
Electronic Design Automation (EDA) is the bedrock of modern digital transformation, encompassing software-based tools used by all semiconductor companies to design cutting-edge chips and complex integrated circuits that power our technological landscape. EDA has, accordingly, accompanied the growth of the semiconductor industry over the years. Looking forward, the growth pace of the main EDA players,…
As we commented a couple of months ago, generative AI has been emerging as a weapon for hackers, making phishing attempts (emails or texts inviting a user to open a malicious link to steal his/her credentials) bespoke and then much harder to detect, and helping to reduce malware software development cycles and/or rewrite code to…
If the narrative about water scarcity mainly focuses about the impact of shortages on our daily lives and key industries (agriculture, beverages…), a new kind of consumers is also affected and will have to treat and reuse increasing amounts of water: semiconductor companies and, more globally, the data center industry. Silicon wafers undergo multiple steps…
If plant-based food keeps struggling as illustrated by Beyond Meat’s underwhelming metrics in the second quarter, innovation in the alternative protein space keeps going unabated. This is hardly surprising, given that the long-term challenges of the food supply chain remain intact, namely the need to massively increase food production to meet rising demand (2 billion…
The cybersecurity sector has come under pressure over the last couple of days following Microsoft’s introduction of a secure web gateway solution (SWG) called Entra, that complements the Tech giant’s leading franchise in identity/access management and extended detection and response (XDR). SWG – which is one of the main components of Gartner’s defined Secure Access…
Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard has faced many antitrust hurdles since its announcement in January 2022, but the legal challenges now seem to be easing. In the US, a federal judge rejected yesterday the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) request for a preliminary injunction to block the deal, considering that the FTC had not…
If all investors’ eyes are currently focused on increasing microprocessors’ performances and speeds, a bottleneck is nevertheless emerging in AI training. This is called the memory wall, or the growing speed difference between microprocessors and computer memory, hence leaving the processing units idle until the requested/needed data becomes available for computing. The recent explosion of…
Even if data is widely considered as the oil of the 21st century, it has been largely under-monetized until now. As an illustration, OpenAI developed ChatGPT with massive amounts of data, free of charge… But data-rich companies, such as social media, have taken notice and the situation is rapidly evolving with both Twitter and Reddit announcing…
As the growth in data centers’ construction continues at an unabated pace around the world – hence sustaining investments in semis, software, networking, and storage solutions – the rise of Generative AI services (e.g., ChatGPT) is literally triggering a little revolution inside them. The workloads (training and inference) of these Deep Learning models necessitate an…
Since their development by Dupont in the 1930s and subsequent widespread manufacturing by 3M in the 1950s, Polyfluroalkyl substances (PFAS) – commonly known as forever chemicals – have raised significant concerns due to the alarming consequences associated with the accumulation of these chemicals in the human body. Notably, exposure to specific PFAS compounds has been…
Nvidia’s last night earnings report was impressive, to say the least. The company notably guided to a 64% top-line growth in Q2 (53% above consensus!), including c.100% year-on-year growth in its data center segment. This strength should not come as a total surprise given that most companies are currently racing to deploy AI applications and…
Newsflow is the video gaming industry is definitely improving after the post-pandemic lull. Nintendo’s latest Zelda set a new record for the series (10 million units sold in 3 days), confirming that consumer spending on well-known franchises remains well oriented and largely unaffected by the macro environment. And importantly, most game publishers are now taking…
The concept of indoor vertical farming gained significant momentum during the Covid-19 crisis as lockdowns exposed the vulnerabilities of the food supply chain and highlighted the need for more reliable and local sources of food. This context, coupled with the sustainability benefits of indoor farms such as reduced water usage, pesticide elimination, and reduced transportation,…
The phenomenal success of Generative AI (GAI) services like ChatGPT or DALL-E has literally triggered an arms race amongst AI’s world leaders as the accuracy level coupled to the creative skills of GAI models are disrupting the $120bn annual revenue generating Web search industry (still heavily dominated by Google) as well as the nascent AI-based…
Water scarcity is a growing concern in today’s world, with more than 3 billion people around the planet already living in water-stressed countries. Moreover, as the global population continues to expand and urbanization accelerates, the demand for clean water is rising rapidly. Consequently, the need for innovative water technologies is becoming more urgent than ever,…
After a tough 2022 year (-7%) dragged down by unfavorable comparisons with a pandemic-driven 2021, videogame content sales in the US are showing signs of life with a 1% growth in February, according to industry tracking group Circana. While this recovery is not impressive yet, hardware spending, which can be viewed as an early indicator…
The so-called Moore’s law, promulgated by Intel’s co-founder Gordon Moore in the mid-60s, states that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit (or IC) doubles every two years. Contrary to what many media said and are still saying nowadays, the doubling of IC’s density doesn’t mean that semiconductor chips are twice as powerful every…
If sales of plant-based meat stalled in 2022, there are nevertheless some sources of resilience in the plant-based category with dairy-free milk, and specifically oat milk, keeping growing at a robust pace as illustrated by the Q4 figures from SunOpta (+23% sales growth for its plant-based milks with volumes up double digit, including +37% for…
The easing of the zero Covid policy in China and of the government crackdown on its Tech industry have obviously been a major positive as both Chinese Tech giants and local companies, that often fly under investors’ radar, enjoyed a significant rerating since the end of 2022. Specifically, cybersecurity firms, that were hit by a…
Nvidia’s Gaming revenue in Q4 came out sharply down again (-46% year-on-year) as the company is navigating an unprecedented inventory correction related to the post-pandemic video gaming slowdown (and, to a lower extent, the collapse of demand for crypto mining cards) and is still facing tough quarterly comparisons. Even if the top-line figure was uninspiring,…
Contrary to many innovative industries, water technology companies have been largely absent from the M&A scene in the last couple of years. This is quite surprising given that water technology represents, in our view, an attractive fit for industrial and testing/diagnostics companies seeking to find new avenues of growth and, potentially, to reduce their revenue…
ChatGPT literally took the world by storm since its release in November 2022. The chatbot is so successful that it added 1 million users in only 5 days, slashing the iPhone’s (74 days) and Instagram’s (2.5 months) previous adoption speed records. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, was founded in 2015 and backed by prominent figures…
As alternatives to conventional proteins keep gaining attention from policymakers, food producers and start-ups alike to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and land and water usage, insects are gradually rising as a major sustainable option. When compared to beef, insect protein production consumes 90% less land, 50% fewer resources and produces up to 200 times lower…
Ransomware attacks have been increasing at an alarming rate over the last couple of years (between +50% and +100% according to various sources) with ransomware becoming the preferred method for many cybercriminals to monetize their fraudulent activity. With the emergence of the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) “business model” in the hackers’ community, this type of attack is…
A milestone was reached in the quest for electrification of the agricultural machinery industry in recent weeks, as CNH, the manufacturer of New Holland and Case IH equipment, unveiled its 120HP “T4 Electric Power Tractor”, the sector’s first all-electric light utility prototype with autonomous features. While autonomous features have already made significant inroads into the…
Over the last couple of months, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed to block two M&A deals in the video game space, first the acquisition of virtual reality start-up Within (that developed a VR fitness app) by Meta and, last week, the blockbuster takeover ($69 billion) of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. Both legal…
As federal funding to modernize the US water infrastructure is gradually being rolled out and as extreme droughts hit most parts of the world last summer, water companies’ Q3 earnings were mostly overwhelming against a tough macro backdrop, a clear reminder that water is a secular theme will little macro sensitivity. On the infrastructure side…
Despite the post-pandemic gaming slowdown and initial macro headwinds, quarterly reports from game makers have been decent overall, with revenue/bookings hovering between moderate growth (Capcom, Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix, Roblox…) and moderate decline (Tencent, Activision, Take-Two…) and earnings expectations/guidance being materially cut in a very limited number of cases (Roblox, Take-Two). As expected, console and…
The agriculture industry has been slow to embrace new technologies and is still largely non-automated and non-digitized. But technology adoption now seems to be hitting an inflection point with artificial intelligence and robotics capabilities aimed at farming operations making a giant leap, as illustrated by the recent introduction of a fully autonomous tractor by Deere. These…
Even if the gaming industry is still affected by tough comparisons with a pandemic-driven 2021, there are some encouraging signs giving confidence in the 2023 outlook. Notably, console sales, which had been underwhelming due to supply constraints, have been accelerating in the last three months and reached 19% growth in the US in September according…
Semiconductor stocks have suffered an across-the-board selling in recent months thanks to the rapid deterioration of several end-markets (PC, smartphones…) and new export controls imposed by the US government on chips and equipment shipped to China. But this “implosion” could also create buying opportunities as some end-markets and, more specifically, the data center one enjoys secular…
Despite the recent slowdown in the plant-based food category, alternatives to conventional meat keep gaining attention from policymakers, food producers and start-ups alike, amid livestock production producing high greenhouse gas emissions and requiring more land and water per calorie of food than crops. Accordingly, in his recent executive order on ‘biotechnology and biomanufacturing innovation’, Joe…
Crypto hacks are now making the headlines on a regular basis, as illustrated by the $620 million heist of blockchain game Axie Infinity in March or last week’s $160 million hack of crypto market maker Wintermute. With criminal activity involving cryptocurrencies on track to reach a new record after the 2021 peak ($14 billion, up…
As illustrated by Google’s recent acquisition of Mandiant and Cisco’s increasing focus on security, a convergence between tech hardware and cybersecurity software has been taking place, a move that should intensify over coming years. For networking hardware specialists such as Cisco and Juniper, implementing firewalling and threat detection software in their routers and switches is…
In line with recent press reports, Tencent has acquired a 49.9% stake in Ubisoft’s family holding company, Guillemot Brothers Ltd (which owns a 13% stake in Ubisoft), in a deal that values the French video game maker (a portfolio company) around EUR75-80 per share and reflects a premium around 80%. Tencent, which already owned directly…
SpaceX’s Starlink, owned by Elon Musk, and US wireless operator T-Mobile made the headlines recently when they announced a partnership aimed at connecting users’ current mobile phones directly to satellites in orbit, hence providing mobile users with (limited) network coverage in remote areas of the United States. The use of satellites for bi-directional telecommunications is…
If California has been a driving force behind the rise of clean energies and adoption of electric vehicles, it could soon take on the same role in the blue revolution. Governor Gavin Newsom recently released a plan called “California’s Water Supply Strategy, Adapting to a Hotter, Drier Future” aimed at improving water supply amid…
Many countries around the world have been hit by record droughts and implemented water restrictions in recent weeks, a harsh reminder that, today, roughly 40% of the people on Earth live in a water stressed region and that this number is expected to climb to 60% in a near future. Secular trends like urbanization, climate…
Many cybersecurity companies, including Fortinet, Cloudflare or Rapid7, reported their quarterly earnings in recent days. While revenue and earnings were overall solid, most companies hinted at increasing deal scrutiny from their corporate customers, lengthening sales cycles and softening growth trends going forward as customers navigate a complex environment and are closely watching their spending amidst…
Identity management specialist Ping Identity (a portfolio company) just announced its acquisition by private equity firm Thoma Bravo for a $2.8 billion enterprise value and a massive 63% premium, marking the sixth multi-billion M&A deal in cybersecurity so far this year. This deal follows the recent SailPoint takeover (also by Thoma Bravo), which was the…
In late June, we argued that a reshaping appeared to be taking place in the sports and energy drink business following the end of the distribution deal between PepsiCo and Bang and reported M&A talks between Monster Beverage and Constellation Brands, a few months after Coca-Cola‘s acquisition of BodyArmor, at a $6.6 billion valuation. We…
Back in 2020, plant-based foods and beverages were all the rage, growing 45% year-on-year as consumers shifted their eating habits during the pandemic toward natural and organic products that are perceived as healthy. Two years on, it’s a very different story: the industry’s growth momentum has stalled to just 6% in 2021 and further deceleration…
Amid general concerns about the macro and corporate spending outlook, it appears that cybersecurity remains an area of strong growth and resilience, as illustrated by the latest Morgan Stanley survey of Chief Information Officers that found that spending on security software was the least likely to be cut among the whole Tech categories (software and…
Over the last few months, some cloud software vendors have faced an unexpected and counter-intuitive risk: the rising efficiency of cloud computing platforms such as Amazon’s AWS stemming from improved chip performances. Cloud-based data storage company Snowflake notably came under the spotlight. It uses AWS cloud to store and process its customers’ data which are…
According to various media reports, semiconductor giant Broadcom is in talks to acquire cloud software infrastructure company VMware. Having started with server virtualization, a software solution that morphs a single and physical server into several virtual ones, VMware gradually added storage and networking virtualization in order to offer a complete infrastructure software stack that allows…
Fertilizer names are currently a source of relative resilience in our Food Revolution portfolio as they ride an exceptional environment (strong farming demand, major supply disruptions) to deliver impressive quarterly figures and/or guidance. Nutrien and CF Industries just reported +64% and +173% Q1 revenue growth, respectively, and EBITDA up 3x or 4x the level achieved…
While there’s been a lot of talk about the increasing number of droughts across the world in relation with climate change (recent restrictions on outdoor watering in Southern California being the latest example), there’s also been, quite ironically, an increasing number of devastating floods as the rapid urbanization pace reduces the land available to absorb…
Two weeks ago, we highlighted the need for automated threat detection in an environment where the number of threats is rising exponentially and commented that Google’s recent acquisition of privately held Siemplify could pave the way to other M&A deals in the field of security automation. It looks like things are speeding up with Microsoft…
Before a potential invasion, Russia has reportedly sought to destabilize Ukraine on the cyber front in recent weeks as hackers attacked and placed destructive malware inside tens of Ukrainian government agencies. This prompted the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to warn critical infrastructure operators against possible cyber threats to US assets, reminding that two major cyberattacks…
We have been arguing for more than one year that video gaming assets could attract significant M&A interest from Tech and social media giants and Microsoft’s reported takeover talks with Activision today clearly confirm our view. The deal, if confirmed, would mark a major step-up in Microsoft’s gaming M&A strategy after its purchase of Bethesda…
Agriculture machinery makers put a lot of efforts last year in developing their digital capabilities and autonomous driving technology, as illustrated notably by CNH’s takeover of Raven Industries for $2.1 billion and Deere’s purchase for $250 million of Bear Flag Robotics. These initiatives seem to be bearing fruit as Deere unveiled last week, during the Consumer Electronics Show…
Many cyber-attacks and security breaches made the headlines last year (SolarWinds, Kaseya…). But that was almost nothing compared to the Log4Shell vulnerability present in the Java open-source Apache logging library Log4J that was revealed in early December and sparked a coordinated response from several US agencies (NSA, FBI, CISA…). This dismay is not disproportionate as…
If Facebook’s long-term strategy was not yet clear enough for everyone, its recent name change to Meta unambiguously states the company’s objective to be a major actor in the buildout of Internet’s upcoming (r)evolution, which premises are already starting to be visible through different angles. From the gaming industry’s perspective, the Web’s next iteration will…
Major video games are gradually turning into Metaverse destinations offering to their vast user base a wide range of activities well beyond gaming and including notably social interactions, entertainment and shopping in a 3D world. Roblox, our second largest portfolio company, clearly stands ahead of the pack when it comes to building a Metaverse, as…
Facebook made the headlines last week when it announced a rebranding to Meta, a strategic shift towards the Metaverse and massive investments over coming years to support its ambitions (starting with $10 billion in 2021). While the timing of these announcements could have much to do with an attempt to divert attention from recent bad…
The increasing climate change awareness over the last years, from both governments and consumers, has resulted in the fight to eradicate greenhouse gases becoming a global priority. As approximately one-third of CO2 emissions are attributed to agriculture, the sector has come under the spotlight to implement changes in the way it produces food. Among various…
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, cybercrime activity has been on a tear (e.g. +130% for ransomware) as companies had no choice but to open up their IT network to remote workers and devices, often struggling to comprehensively secure it on time, leaving entry points for malicious attacks. Interestingly, 50% of these security failures…
Corporate sustainability is gradually waking up to the global water risk, with large companies such as PepsiCo and Facebook pledging in recent weeks to become net water positive by 2030, meaning that they will contribute more water to the ecosystem than they consume. After “carbon neutral”, “net water positive” could soon become the new green…
Recently, we commented that the Internet-of-Things (IoT) was finally gaining traction in the industrial world and was on track to become 5G’s killer app as it provides industrial companies with the opportunity to attach a wide range of digital services and features (monitoring, analytics…) to their installed base of cars, factory machines or robots. The…
There has been a lot of talk recently about the Metaverse, with notably Mark Zuckerberg commenting during Facebook’s latest earnings call that “we believe this is going to be the successor of the mobile Internet … In addition to being the next generation of the Internet, the Metaverse is also going to be the next…
On August 3rd, California water regulators voted a water restriction impacting thousands of farmers in the Sacramento and San Joaquin watersheds. Permission is now required to divert more than 55 gallons of water per day from rivers or streams. This (ridiculously low) limit further illustrates one of the worst droughts in California, which is in…
If nothing is done, there will be more plastics in the ocean than fish by 2050 according to the World Economic Forum. As a result, regulators and consumers alike are developing an increased awareness towards the issue of microplastic pollution that humans drink, eat and breathe. Accordingly, the packaging industry is set to undergo radical…
After weeks of heavy rain and floods in large parts of Europe, it can be weird to talk about water shortages and solutions to tackle this challenge. But the reality is that, today, roughly 40% of the people on earth live in a water stressed region and this number is expected to climb to 60%…
Netflix’s long-awaited entrance into the video game market was “officialized” last week when news broke that the company had hired a gaming industry veteran, Mike Verdu, to lead the initiative. This is a natural move for Netflix, that needs to find new avenues of growth beyond an increasingly competitive video streaming market and that has…
Leading agriculture machinery maker CNH announced yesterday the takeover of Raven Industries, a portfolio company, for $2.1bn including debt. Raven is mainly known for its precision agriculture and autonomy technology with a range of products covering machinery guidance & steering, field computers and data management. Raven is also active in two other businesses (engineered films and…
A couple of weeks ago, we commented that the Augmented Reality (AR) theme was heating up with several major new games (Pikmin, the Witcher…) and devices (Snapchat spectacles) hitting the market and that AR glasses could take over smartphones as the new major gaming platform in a near future as they offer more immersive AR…
Nearly one million cancer cases have been neglected across Europe due to the pandemic according to the European Cancer Organisation. In the US, the National Cancer Institute documented that nearly ten million cancer screenings were missed nationwide during the coronavirus outbreak. Due to ignored appointments and cancer screenings, Covid-19 will therefore, unfortunately, cause indirect increases…
It’s already been 5 years since the Pokemon Go phenomenon brought Augmented Reality (AR) to the masses, with the game developed by Niantic (held by both Google and Nintendo) reaching more than 500 million users by the end of 2016 and still remaining at the top of app store downloads in 2021. Despite this initial…
The cyber-attack which recently struck one of the biggest oil infrastructures in the US, the Colonial Pipeline, is the latest in a series of high-profile attacks targeting critical US infrastructures. Back in December, the Sunburst/SolarWinds infiltration operation made the headlines as it hit the US Treasury, the US Department of Commerce as well as most…
While it was already on an upward trajectory, consumption of plant proteins recorded a pandemic-related acceleration in 2020 with U.S. retail plant-based foods growing 27% to $7 billion and plant-based meat 45% to $1.4 billion. Consumption continued to be driven by rising awareness to natural organic foods which are perceived as healthier. As many meat…
If 5G roll-outs are now well on track, there is also a lot of activity in space-based connectivity that is expected to complement 5G in hard-to-reach locations, make the Internet of Things a reality (e.g. providing connectivity to a ship in the middle of the ocean) and provide faster Internet to rural areas. SpaceX’s Starlink,…
Microsoft just announced the acquisition of medical artificial intelligence software maker Nuance in a deal worth $19.7bn, that represents a 23% premium to the last closing price. Nuance, one of our Digital Health portfolio companies, is focused on speech recognition software that allows physicians to capture patient discussions and enter the data into electronic health…
Even if video gaming stocks have not been spared by the massive Tech correction of the last few weeks, it’s worth noting that several Tech giants keep spending big on gaming M&A, in a clear sign of confidence in the industry’s outlook and valuation in a post-pandemic world. Just a few weeks after the completion of…
Since the vaccine news last month, some investors have started questioning the growth sustainability of work-from-home winners, including cybersecurity names, considering that most lockdowns are now behind us and that we are heading towards a full economy reopening in 2021. This week’s earnings and guidance from some of the top software vendors securing the remote…
The newsflow in the gaming industry remains extremely supportive, to say the least. Last week, Nvidia commented that demand for its graphics cards was significantly exceeding supply and Ubisoft announced that its latest Assassin’s Creed title was the biggest first-week seller in the franchise, suggesting that consensus relatively low expectations for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are…
The roller-coaster ride is set to continue for Beyond Meat, one of our largest Food Revolution positions, with significant disappointment and confusion last night following the company’s Q3 earnings report and McDonald’s announcement of its MacPlant burger (initial perception was that McDonald’s would develop plant-based burgers on its own). Even if we understand the short-term reaction,…
There’s definitely a lot of excitement around liquid biopsies and genomic testing, as illustrated by the acquisition announced today of Thrive Earlier Detection for up to $2.15bn by Exact Sciences. This transaction follows the $8bn purchase of Grail by Illumina a few weeks ago and that of ArcherDx by Invitae for up to $1.4bn in June.…
HelloFresh, the leading German online mealkit provider, just pre-announced impressive figures for Q3 with revenue expected up 120% to around EUR970m (vs. EUR836m initial guidance) and EBITDA expected to rise 7x to around EUR115m (vs. EUR73m initially). The company raised its full-year guidance accordingly, now forecasting 95%-105% revenue growth vs. 75%-95% previously. The read-across is…
Restaurant closures, bankruptcies, reopenings with restrictions… The restaurant industry has had a pretty rough time, to say the least. And things should remain difficult in the foreseeable future as Covid-19 doesn’t seem in a hurry to go away. In spite of this adverse environment, we have been investing in various restaurant software names since day…
In early July, we commented that Livongo was arguably one of the most attractive assets in the Digital Health and Nutrition Tech space and was likely to attract takeover interest. Well, we didn’t have to wait long to see some M&A action as Livongo and leading telemedicine player Teladoc announced their merger today in a…
After more than 20 years covering the Technology and Innovation space, we didn’t think we would one day spend some time researching companies offering lawn and garden products… Here we are, investing in the Scotts Miracle-Gro, a US company that spotted the hydroponic trend at an early stage and became, through its Hawthorne division, the…
The disruption of the global meat supply chain, which started a couple of weeks ago in the US with the Covid-related closure of meat processing facilities, intensified in recent days. Over the weekend, China’s customs suspended imports of poultry products from a Tyson meatpacking facility which was a coronavirus cluster. This move followed the discovery…
While it was already on an upward trajectory, consumption of plant-based meat recorded a major acceleration during the pandemic with Nielsen estimating that sales of fresh meat alternatives in the US were up 240% year-on-year over the March-May period. The disruption in the traditional meat processing industry clearly helped: some of America’s largest processing plants…
Back in April, we commented that a new generation of cloud-native cybersecurity companies (Zscaler, Okta, CrowdStrike…) was likely to disrupt the actual leaders (Check Point, Palo Alto…). Clearly, the accelerated digitization of the economy in the last couple of months helped them deliver on our expectation, with several players reporting impressive earnings last week and…
Last week, highly popular video game Fortnite hosted an in-game virtual concert by rapper Travis Scott. The performance attracted a record 12.3 million players, a number that should be revised upwards when taking into consideration people who watched the concert outside of the game on streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube. While some could argue…
There’s been a lot of literature in recent days about the “remote” or at-home revolution. Remote working, videoconferencing, telemedicine and online shopping just to name a few are indeed currently supporting millions of people across the world in their daily professional activity, in helping them to stay in contact with colleagues and loved ones and,…
Video gaming has undoubtedly been one of the rare safe havens in the equity market in recent weeks, as illustrated by the performance of our Gaming certificate (down just 3.7% month-to-date). The industry should indeed emerge largely unscathed from the current health crisis as an expected surge in digital revenue, with hundreds of millions of people…
Bucking the market trend, our largest Digital Health position Teladoc reached a new high yesterday. How to fight the spread of novel infectious diseases such as the coronavirus? That’s the question health authorities across the world have had to answer in recent weeks and it appears that new technologies, namely telemedicine and medical robotics, can…