June Tech Round-Up: The Generative AI Battleground, Six Months In
Here we are, six months into the global generative AI battleground. The AI hype cycle is running red hot as the titans of the technology world duke it out for supremacy, sinking billions of dollars into new platforms.
Read about the biggest deals beyond Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI, learn about where experts think generative AI will have the biggest impact — and with the striking interest in Nvidia this month following its exceptionally strong quarter — discover how hardware providers, chip manufacturers and hyperscalers are fast becoming the pick and shovel salesmen of the AI gold rush.
Enjoy, from all of us at North Ridge Partners.
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May Tech Round-Up: Tell us what you think!
This month we’re still bringing you all the news, but we are taking a break from our usual original content. Instead, we’d like to understand what you like and what you don’t like about Tech Round-Up. Please answer our quick questionnaire – it’ll take less than 3 minutes.
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April Tech Round-Up: Crashes, Contagion and Innovation
As the Tech Meltdown of 2022 rolled into 2023, contagion spread to the banking sector. With new dominos still likely to fall, markets are nervous. This month we dive into past crashes and provide some clues on what to expect - including the wave of innovation spawned when things go awry
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March Tech Round-Up: eCommerce Adjusts to its New Normal.
eCommerce boomed during the pandemic…until suddenly, it didn’t. This month we examine the new normal in ANZ, as well as the rise and rise of Asian eCommerce.
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February Tech Round-Up: The Rise of the Machines
ChatGPT is already transforming the world. In this month’s newsletter we explore the duality - the yin and yang - of generative AI, while asking if it is ushering in the next tech bubble.
(Image by Dall-E 2: “a painting in the style of Picasso depicting the rise of generative AI”).
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December Tech Round-Up: a Bevy of Black Swans
2022 may have delivered unprecedented challenges – even for the most battle-scarred of investors – but it’s important to put this year’s Tech meltdown into longer term context. While the circumstances might be extraordinary, some of the outcomes are remarkably familiar.
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November Tech Round-Up: Logistics and Supply Chain Edition
History will record this as the time when some of the tech giants started mass layoffs, when quarterly results stumbled, when FTX failed and when Twitter changed hands.
Such turmoil! Yet entrepreneurs and investors are still remarkably positive in selected verticals. One of those is Logistics and Supply Chain. Dive in with us.
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October Tech Round-Up: Building a Tech Ecosystem
Mountain towns around the world transformed into hot beds of tech during the pandemic, as distributed workforces found their way there in search of fresh air and a healthier environment. At North Ridge Partners we’ve been studying successful tech mountain towns like Boulder, Colorado and Bend, Oregon in our quest to help Queenstown - our spiritual home in the Southern Alps of New Zealand - to build out its own tech ecosystem.
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September Tech Round-Up: The Cybersecurity Edition
Cybersecurity has rocketed towards the top of many risk registries, and IT spending to secure networks, data and systems is growing strongly. That’s good news for cybersecurity vendors and provides ample opportunities for investors in a sector where valuations have already significantly retreated along with the wider tech category
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Cybercrime Is Getting Worse - That’s Good News For Cybersecurity Firms.
Cybercrime, increasingly including nation-state attacks, costs businesses and the community upwards of US$440bn a year, according to McAfee, and the problem is getting worse.
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Broadcom’s Swoop on VMware Secures A Growing Software Portfolio, But Customers and Partners Are Wary
The move by chip manufacturer Broadcom to acquire VMware — the business that famously popularised virtualisation and led to the rise of cloud computing — in May 2022, caught the market by surprise for two reasons.
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August Tech Round-Up: The Space Defence Edition
Sovereign states, and even corporations, are pondering the first heavy industrial-scale conflict in Europe since the middle of the 20th Century and some of the questions are being answered far from the trenches … in space. C'est la guerre.
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War On The Ground In Ukraine Raises Questions About Defence In Space
Sovereign states – and even corporations – are pondering the first heavy industrial-scale conflict in Europe since the middle of the 20th Century and some of the questions are being answered far from the trenches.
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Trifecta Of Space Companies Set To Benefit From Concerns Over Defence
The growing focus on defence capabilities in space is likely to be a boon for many participants in the sector. Here are three companies set to benefit.
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July Tech Round-Up: UnSaaS-tainable Valuations
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.
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Software Companies Have Given Up Years Of Multiple Expansion, And Profitability Is Back In Vogue
A decade’s worth of digital transformation, supercharged by two years of COVID-fuelled acceleration, delivered a boon for software businesses.
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Australian Software Bubbled And Popped, NZ Mostly Popped And Asia Just Fizzled!
Listed software companies in ANZ and Asia experienced the same explosive burst in valuations as their US counterparts, but there are some important differences.
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June Tech Round-Up: The Indonesia Edition
With more than 270 million people scattered across a vast archipelago, working and living in one of the world's largest, rapidly developing economies, can Indonesia’s entrepreneurs build an SE Asian digital powerhouse.
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Technology Will Add $2.8 Trillion to Indonesian Economy By 2040
With 17,000 islands strung out across thousands of kilometres, Indonesia spans a vast arc of the planet's surface and at least 17,000 potential points of pain as climate change accelerates sea level rise and the chaotic disintegration of long-established weather patterns. But with more than 270 million people scattered through that island chain, working and living in one of the world's largest, rapidly developing economies, the huge republic is destined to drive technological and economic adaptation to change, both locally and at global scale.
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Six Indonesian Digital Leaders To Watch
With technology set to add trillions to the Indonesian economy over the next two decades, and with the Indonesian government creating a legislative and regulatory environment designed to accelerate growth, the nation's entrepreneurs are innovating across a wide selection of industries.
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