Software may be eating the planet, but today there’s widespread indigestion. After a multi-year tear, software company multiples have given back gains. Profitability is now back in vogue, with value investors finally smiling, as growth investors cringe.

This month we dissect the rise and fall of software valuations.

Enjoy, from all of us at North Ridge Partners...

Original Thinking From North Ridge Partners

The years of massive valuations driven by digital transformation and boosted by COVID have come to an end. We take a long-term look at the trends in SaaS and Enterprise software to see where we’ve been, and where we might be going.

The last few years have seen expansion and then retreat in both the US and ANZ markets. Our analysis reveals similarities but also some intriguing differences between the two markets.

North Ridge Partners’ Peter Hynd parses the data and delivers his insights on the SaaS and enterprise software markets in this month’s minicast.

There are surprisingly few popular songs about Enterprise Resource Planning or Software as a Service, for reasons surpassing comprehension. Songs about sass, however, abound. Close enough - here’s our SaaSy selection!

Asia Pacific Tech News

China is not surprisingly unhappy about Indian government investigations of Chinese tech businesses.

Asia is playing a good game of catch-up in the world of quantum computing.

Awful within normal parameters,  Samsung shares get a boost.

Oh no! In the all-consuming race to create new billionaires China may have fallen behind, but its EV giant BYD, backed by Warren Buffett, has just surpassed Musk’s Tesla in sales!

Battered by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes, Tencent’s advertising revenues slump 18 per cent.

Markets Action:

The worst quarter in years for stocks like Microsoft, Tesla and Amazon.

Mark Zuckerberg issues a dire warning about a market downturn so huge even Meta isn’t immune.

Trouncing the S&P 500 – only a few months after being declared uninvestible, Chinese stocks outperform their US counterparts.

Crypto investors have learned how to be skeptical, it seems, after so-called “stablecoins” started proving to be nothing of the sort.

Deep freeze - how IPOs went from blockbuster to bust.

Big Tech

Amazon has plans to make Alexa imitate anyone’s voice from a sample of audio – what could possibly go wrong?

Elon Musk’s will-he-won’t-he bid for Twitter has landed firmly (for now) in the 'he won’t’ category — though changing his mind won’t be as easy as he thinks. How will the Great Man get out of this one alive? Wait for the price reduction.

Google wants to jump before it’s pushed and move its ad business into another part of Alphabet.

Electrifying – Tesla shipments soar as Chinese plant reopens. Even if its smaller than BYD now.

Nvidia’s path to a trillion dollar valuation – is it the next Trunicorn?

Stuff We Found Interesting:

Scott Galloway asks, is TikTok the trojan stallion?

Boris Johnson’s legacy in tech is as embarrassing as everything else about him.

Remember when the crowd bought up that stinker of a company, GameStop, for kicks? That trade almost killed Robinhood.

North Ridge Partners: technology investment banking across the Asia Pacific

North Ridge Partners works with technology companies across the Asia Pacific to achieve transformational outcomes through providing strategic financial advice, advising on M&A transactions and raising capital. We’re experienced deal-makers who have built, run, and sold numerous technology companies.

Contact us here.

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