CIBC Tech & Innovation Market Update – February 2024

Canadian technology sector performance and valuation

Source: FactSet and Pitchbook as at February 29, 2024; in C$ unless otherwise noted. 
1 Please refer to the end of the document for technology group constituents.

Canadian venture capital market monthly recap

January 2024

Aggregate deal value

$408M
(vs. $234M in Dec-23)²
YTD: $408M
(vs. $360M YTD-23)³

Number of deals

29
(vs. 30 in Dec-23)
YTD: 29
(vs. 30 YTD-23)

Avg. deal value

$19M
(vs. $11M in Dec-23)²
YTD: $19M
(vs. $23M YTD-23)³

Most active province by value ($ / #)

Quebec
($284M / 6)
YTD: Quebec
($284M / 6)

Most active province by count ($ / #)

Ontario
($81M / 17)
YTD: Ontario
($81M / 17)

Most active sector

Software
(97% of funds raised)
YTD: Software
(97%)

2 7 deals in Jan-24 and 8 deals in Dec-23 with no announced values are omitted from deal values.
3 7 deals in YTD-24 and 14 deals in YTD-23 with no announced values are omitted from deal values. 

Noteworthy Canadian deals

Company Size Financing round Sub-sector Lead investors
Valsoft US$170M Growth Financing Software Acquirer Coatue / Viking Global Investors
AppDirect US$100M Growth Financing Digital Commerce CDPQ
Thentia Cloud US$38M Series B Software - GovTech First Ascent Ventures / Spring Mountain Capital / BDC Capital / Espresso Capital
Spellbook C$20M Series A Software - LegalTech Inovia Capital
Beatdapp US$17M Series A Software - Audit / Fraud Detection Saltagen Ventures

T&I @ CIBC

Deal activity

Dye & Durham

C$126 Million
Bought Deal Offering of Common Shares
CIBC Global Investment Banking acted as Co-Manager

Dye & Durham – $126 Million Bought Deal Offering of Common Shares

CIBC Global Investment Banking acted as co-manager on an $126 Million bought deal offering of common shares with an underwriting syndicate led by Canaccord Genuity Corp. Dye & Durham intends to use these proceeds towards the repayment of debt as part of its stated commitment to reduce its leverage ratio to less than four times total net debt to adjusted EBITDA.

Rossum

Undisclosed
Growth Capital Financing
CIBC Innovation Banking acted as Sole Provider

Rossum – Growth Capital Financing

CIBC Innovation Banking provided growth capital financing to London-based company Rossum, an AI-powered transactional document automation platform. Rossum will use the funding to bolster and secure its strong market position in the United States and United Kingdom.

Actionstep

Undisclosed
Syndicated Debt Financing
CIBC Innovation Banking acted as Administrative Agent & Lead Arranger

Actionstep – Syndicated Debt Financing

CIBC Innovation Banking acted as Administrative Agent and Lead Arranger to Actionstep, a developer of cloud-based legal practice management to software for law firms. The facility was expanded and syndicated, in support of Actionstep’s acquisiton of the Canadian legal accounting company Soluno.

In The News @ CIBC

CIBC Innovation Banking is extending its fuel runway, with an additional $2.5 billion in growth capital dedicated to support founders and venture capitalists in the innovation economy. Over the past 6 years, CIBC Innovation Banking has supported over 500 venture-backed businesses across software, life sciences, health care, clean tech sectors and more, injecting more than $9 billion of capital.

Learn more

Sean Thompson, Managing Director at CIBC Innovation Banking’s Menlo Park office in Northern California shares three insights for early start-ups to look for from their bank.

Learn more

Technology & Innovation in‘sites’ with CIBC Equity Research

T&I 'Bits and Bytes'

Reskilling era – Tech restructuring continues as AI enters the workforce

Recently, SAP announced a $2.2B restructuring program impacting an estimated 8,000 employees as the company turns its focus to AI. Tech companies have continued to lay off staff in 2024; however, announcements so far this year have largely been viewed as continuations of cuts announced in 2023. SAP’s announcement was different: following the restructuring, SAP expects its headcount to remain the same. In a press release published Tuesday the company highlighted its company-wide transformation program, which centres around ensuring SAP’s skill set and resources continue to meet future business needs. We expect that future layoffs in 2024 across industries may have a similar tone as companies push to optimize costs while also adapting to changing technology.

Bitcoin buzz – The SEC’s ETF approval saga

In early January, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s official X account was hacked: a tweet was posted indicating that the SEC had granted approval to the highly anticipated spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds. The price of bitcoin spiked close to $48,000 on the back of the news, before SEC Chair Gary Gensler reported in a follow-up tweet that the previous message was unauthorized, the account had been compromised, and the SEC had not in fact approved the listing and trading of bitcoin ETFs. The commotion on January 9 was followed by the SEC announcing its official approval of bitcoin ETFs the following day. A total of 11 bitcoin ETFs launched on January 11. The data breach underscores some of the long-standing concerns around the cryptocurrency’s association with fraud and market manipulation (ex. the FTX downfall).

Fact or fiction? – The importance of content moderation in an election year

The importance of accurate and reliable information during an election cannot be understated. That assertion was made clear during the highly contentious 2016 election, when “fake news” became prevalent on social media platforms targeting both the Democratic and Republican candidates. The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) “Global Risks Report” for 2024 ranked AI-derived misinformation and disinformation as the highest global risk over the next two years, above climate change, war, and economic weakness. In line with the WEF’s report, AI experts have been warning for months that artificial intelligence poses a significant risk to the 2024 election due not only to potential false information spread, but also because of the ability of AI to build models that are designed to influence large populations. With elections taking place in more than 40 countries this year, we expect content moderation will return to top of mind for social media companies given the EU’s Digital Services Act is also now in full effect.

Recent technology news

Quarterly results from Meta and Alphabet reported record earnings in their digital advertising business after nearly two years of stagnation. Amazon reported a 27% increase to their ad business, with Meta close behind with a 24% year over year growth. Industry experts say the outlook of the digital ad market is very positive across the globe.

Read the full article at CNBC.

It started with a picture of the moon being shared on Reddit – where beautiful details and textures suddenly appeared on the image where none had been visible before. With Samsung’s image processing features, people are starting wonder what constitutes a real image these days. It becomes an even more salient question to ask as Samsung roll’s out its new generative AI features for its new Galaxy S24 and S24 Ultra devices.

Read the full article at the Verge.

CEO Shou Zi Chew sits down for an interview to help address TikTok’s serious PR problem regarding consumer privacy. While his leadership style starkly contrasts traditional Silicon Valley CEOs, the company sits uneasy for many people, with the platform still feeding US data to its parent company Bytedance, which not long ago, was caught tracking Forbes journalists in late 2022.

Read the full article at Vox.

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Tech & Innovation Key Contacts

Roman Dubczak
Deputy Chair
Susan Rimmer
Managing Director And Head, Global Corporate & Investment Banking
Kevin Li
Managing Director and Head, Global Investment Banking

Global Investment Banking

Kathy Butler
Vice Chair and Head of CIBC Capital Markets – B.C.
Colin Ryan
Managing Director, Head of Technology & Innovation, Global Investment Banking
Adam Noily
Managing Director, Head of U.S. Technology & Innovation, Global Investment Banking
Daniel Lee
Managing Director, Technology & Innovation, Global Investment Banking
Emilie Bissonnette
Managing Director, Global Investment Banking
Rob Magwood
Managing Director, Equity Capital Markets
Frazer Wong
Executive Director, Technology & Innovation, Global Investment Banking

Innovation Banking

Mark Usher
Executive Managing Director, Innovation Banking
Paul McKinlay
Vice-President and Head of U.S. Origination, Innovation Banking
Amy Olah
Managing Director and Head of Canadian Origination, Innovation Banking

Canadian Technology Constituents

High-Growth Canadian SaaS
  • Ceridian
  • Copperleaf
  • Coveo
  • Descartes
  • Docebo
  • Kinaxis
  • Lightspeed
  • Q4
  • Shopify
  • Thinkific
Large Cap Canadian Tech
  • Altus
  • Blackberry
  • Celestica
  • CGI
  • Constellation Software
  • Converge Technologies
  • Dye and Durham
  • Enghouse
  • Evertz Technologies
  • Nuvei
  • OpenText
  • Softchoice
  • Well Health
Mid Cap Canadian Tech
  • Calian
  • Computer Modelling Group
  • D2L
  • Kneat
  • Payfare
  • Real Matters
  • TECSYS
  • Tiny
  • Vecima
Small Cap Canadian Tech
  • Alithya
  • Baylin Tech
  • BBTV
  • Blackline Safety
  • Farmers Edge
  • Optiva
  • Pivotree
  • Quarterhill
  • Sangoma
  • Sylogist
  • Terago
  • VerticalScope
  • Vitalhub
  • Voxtur

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