What a January! Vaccination Vascillation replaced Pandemic Pandemonium. GameStop showed the power of the crowd, whether or not you liked the trade. Big Tech earnings knocked the ball out of the park, SPACs powered on as an alternative to IPOs, Bezos quit as Amazon CEO, and dissent with Big Tech grew by the day.

Enjoy, from all of us at NRP.

News and Original thinking from North Ridge Partners:

North Ridge Partners beefs up its senior team in Singapore and NZ. We’re at it again!

GameStop, set and match: Was this pure People Power, or just a pump and dump scheme?

A guide to ESG, CSR, and Impact Investing. Michael Gethen walks us down acronym lane.

Musing over 2020:

Yeah, we know: it’s time to leave 2020 behind. But with an eye to the future, it’s useful to understand what has changed since that Darkest of Years. The Financial Times tells us how COVID-19 changed the way we use technology, while a16z tells us how enterprises changed, and what happened in fintech.

Stuff you need to know about Big Tech:

Google is threatening to remove its search product from Australia. This game of cat and mouse has global consequences, much to the delight of Microsoft, who quickly offered Bing as a substitute.

Meanwhile, in a sign that all the free food in the world doesn’t keep people happy, the team at the Googleplex formed its own trade union.

Netflix hits 200 million subscribers. The headline says it all.

Apple CEO Tim Cook gives a keynote in Brussels, shaming (but not naming) Facebook over its business model.

When the chips are down. TSMC is a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing, integrated into supply chains, and based in Taiwan. If TSMC was removed from the game, the west could be set back by 5-10 years. All of this is occurring while Intel has lost its way (can Pat Gelsinger turn it around?) Meanwhile, Samsung and TSMC are pouring billions into advanced chipmaking plants in Arizona and Texas. Join the dots.

Forbes talks about Big Tech’s social responsibility. A good read.

Earnings call:

If you need any proof that Big Tech has benefited from the pandemic, read no further: Apple has a blinder of a quarter, Microsoft is awash with profits, Facebook steams on (but sees Apple as a threat), Amazon’s quarterly earnings soar 44% as Bezos vacates the CEO seat, Alphabet quarterly earnings rise by 23%, and Netflix flies. For our Aussie readers, Atlassian smashes expectations for four consecutive quarters. Meanwhile, that champion meme stock, Tesla, is an outlier. Seemingly made of Teflon, it powers on after missing its target.

It’s the economy, Stupid!

Why are tech stocks soaring in a pandemic? It’s not just their impressive operating metrics driving prices - it’s also Modern Monetary Theory 101. Perceived by some to be the only way forward, and by others as a fast track to Weimar Republic-style economic chaos, there’s little doubt that a huge, bold experiment is unfolding before us. And for those interested in the relationship between MMT and Bitcoin, read this.

Do I hear a bell ringing at the top of the market?

Which leads us, of course, to tech company valuations. Forbes ponders the influence of MMT on stock valuations, while the Wall St Journal asks “what on earth is going on with tech IPOs?” CNBC recalls the dotcom bubble, reminding us that valuations do matter. And to add to the drama, here is Elizabeth Warren’s letter to the US Senate.

Asia Pacific Tech News:

Bubble? What bubble? PRC video app Kuaishou listed on the HKSE last week, >1,000x oversubscribed. Raising $5.4 billion in the biggest tech IPO since Uber, Kuaishou’s stock has nearly tripled, for a market cap of $160bn (on revenues of $6bn).

Jack is back. No longer MIA, Jack Ma makes his first appearance since the Ant crackdown. Meanwhile, in a tale of two Colins, Colin Fan is no longer The Man at the Vision Fund and the FT lifts the lid on Colin Huang, Shanghai's secretive Internet king.

Are Grab and Gojek on a one-way ride to nowhere? Here’s the Grab-Gojek merger story, thus far.

Despite its troubles in the USA and India, Tik Tok’s owner ByteDance still doubled its revenues in 2020.

Rocket Internet co-founder Alexander Samwer’s firm Picus Capital will invest $75m in Asian tech start-ups. 

SPACS, the final frontier:

SPACs, currently all the rage in the US, used to be known as cashboxes. Currently touted as an easy way to list a tech company, they’re frowned upon by regulators in some markets.

PWC explains why companies have been joining the SPAC boom, and the Verge (who came up with the Star Trek reference!) set out the basics. Asia may get in on the act, with unicorns considering ditching IPOs in favour of SPACs, Singapore considers stepping up to the plate, and Patrick Grove reportedly has a look.

We wonder how long this will last.

Buy the numbers:

From $10m Series A to $900m pre-money in 12 months: Welcome to the Clubhouse.

What was the world’s 9th most downloaded app last year? Telegram!

$20bn: Silver Lake raises its sixth flagship fund. That’s some scale.

13 million: The number of US consumers flocking to open Afterpay accounts by Nov 2020.

1 trillion minutes watched in 2020: Twitch releases its latest facts and figures. Wow.

#1: The Okta 2020 Trend Report ranked Office 365 the #1 app globally.

Quirky and interesting:

Will Smith dates a robot. Watch it here.

In a sign of the times, Fortnite developer Epic Games just bought a shopping mall for its new headquarters.

Meet the rich dudes paying $55m each to be astronauts!

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Build, fund, and exit your technology company with North Ridge Partners

North Ridge Partners works with technology companies across the Asia Pacific to achieve transformational outcomes through advice on strategic positioning, raising third party funding, M&A, and direct investment. We’re experienced deal-makers who have built, run, and sold numerous technology companies.

Contact us here.

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