CIBC Tech & Innovation Market Update – July 2023

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TECH & INNOVATION MARKET UPDATE

The information you need to stay up to date on developments within the tech ecosystem.

   

Canadian technology sector performance and valuationSector Performance and valuation chart: S&P 500 17.6%, S&P 500 Info Tech Index 38.8%, NASDAQ 25.0%, S&P/TSX Info Tech Index 57.9%

 
EV / NTM revenue multiples 1 LTM sector price performance 1
EV/NTM revenue multiples: High Growth Canadian Saas 4.9x, Large Cap Canadian Tech 2.7x, Mid Cap Canadian Tech 2.4x, Small Cap Canadian Tech 1.6x LTM sector price performance: High-Growth Canadian SaaS 37.6%, Large Cap Canadian Tech 4.6%, Mid Cap Canadian Tech 1.5%, Small Cap Canadian Tech (23.9%)

Source: FactSet and Pitchbook; as at June 30, 2023; in C$ unless otherwise noted.
1 Please refer to the end of the document for technology group constituents.

 

Canadian Venture Capital market monthly recap 

June 2023

Aggregate deal value

$714M

(vs. $571M in May-23)2
YTD: $4.2B
(vs. $5.5B in YTD-22)3

Number of deals

37

(vs. 51 in May-23)
YTD: 304
(vs. 570 YTD-22)

Avg. deal value

$30M

(vs. $15M in May-23)2
YTD: $21M
(vs. $15M YTD-22)3

Most active province by value ($/#)

Ontario

($513M / 20)
YTD: Ontario ($2.4B/150)

Most active province by count ($/#)

Ontario

($513M / 20)
YTD: Ontario ($2.4B/150)

Most active sector

Software

(93% of funds raised)
YTD: Software (74%)

2 13 deals in Jun-23 and 12 deals in May-23 with no announced values are omitted from deal values.
3 105 deals in YTD-23 and 204 deals in YTD-22 with no announced values are omitted from deal values.

 

Noteworthy Canadian deals

Company

Size

Sub-sector

Lead investors

Cohere

US$270M

Software – Natural Language Processing

Inovia Capital

GSoft

C$125M

Software – Employee Engagement Software

CDPQ

Rose Rocket

US$38M

Software – Transportation Management Software

Scale Venture Partners

GeologicAI

US$20M

Software – Geological Data Analysis Software

Breakthrough Energy Ventures

T&I @ CIBC

Deal Activity

KeyOps - Undisclosed Credit Facility, CIBC Innovation Banking acted as Sole Provider, Valuation June 2023

KeyOps – Growth Capital Financing

CIBC Innovation Banking provided growth financing to KeyOps, a Toronto-based insights and engagement platform that connects physicians to life science companies. KeyOps plans to use this funding to invest in product development and expand into the US market.

Read the full report on BusinessWire.

Bloomberang - $60M Credit Facility, CIBC Innovation Banking acted as Lead Arranger, Valuation June 2023

Bloomerang – $60M Syndicated Debt Financing

CIBC Innovation Banking provided $60 million in syndicated debt financing commitment for Indianapolis-based Bloomerang, a complete donor relationship management solution for thousands of small and medium-sized nonprofits.

Read the full report on BusinessWire.

 

Technology & Innovation in‘sites’ with CIBC Equity Research

T&I ‘Bits & Bytes’

 

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Defrosting the IPO market – Tech makes a comeback

After a lackluster 2022, the IPO market is showing signs of life. Cava, a Mediterranean quick service restaurant, successfully listed on the NYSE earlier this month, raising $318MM. In addition, three large U.S. IPOs are scheduled to list in the coming weeks: Kodiak Gas Services, Savers Value Village, and Fidelis, a Bermuda-based insurer. In the tech sector, Klaviyo, a marketing automation company based in Boston, confidentially filed for an IPO earlier last month, and data suggests that technology IPOs may be at the forefront of the IPO revival. According to PwC’s Global IPO Watch, technology sector IPOs were the most prevalent in Q1/23, with 57 IPOs globally, raising a total of $7.1B.

Read the full article here.

 

A red vector drawing representing sectors

M&A summer – Tech M&A heats up in Europe

After a slower 2022, private equity spending appears to be recovering as valuations stabilize. European tech, in particular, appears to have found favor among private equity buyers. Last week, Norwegian IT company Crayon was reported by Bloomberg to be exploring a sale, causing its shares to jump 10%. The Crayon news comes after Silver Lake announced that it will be acquired by Software AG, and Bain Capital made a bid for SoftwareOne. After a muted 2022 with firms preserving cash, private equity has a significant amount of dry powder to spend. According to S&P Global, global private equity dry powder at the end of 2022 was estimated at ~$2 trillion. With most of the dust now settled and current valuations seemingly accepted as the new normal, we expect private equity M&A activity to begin to pick back up in 2023.

Read the full article here.

 

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Cashing out – Secondary offerings on the rise

In 2022, the IPO market was essentially halted and private equity (PE) was forced to hold many of its investments for longer than expected. Beyond IPOs, private equity also found it difficult to exit stakes in recently public companies amid the market turmoil. Secondary offerings were down 61% Y/Y to US$52B in 2022, the lowest figure in five years according to S&P Global data. However, glimmers of hope for private equity investors have appeared, with the S&P 500 up ~14% year to date and +20% over October lows.

In an improving valuation environment, we have begun to see follow-on sales return. Data from the Wall Street Journal suggests that companies and private equity firms have sold more than $24B in stock through secondary offerings since the end of April. However, valuations remain below 2021 highs, with many of these secondary sales being done at a discount. According to the Financial Times, approximately two-thirds of follow-on offerings YTD have been below IPO prices. Nevertheless, secondary sales allow PE to free up capital to be returned to partners, providing exits as the firms look to raise new funds and eventually fund the next crop of IPO candidates.

Read the full article here.

 

A red vector drawing of a calculator

Go big or go small – With large cap tech ahead, will small cap rebound?

Tech has outperformed this spring, with the NASDAQ Composite beating the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 9% in May, the biggest gap between the two indices since October 2021 according to Dow Jones data. Tech has been surging from trough levels, driven by the expectation of slowing rate hikes and AI commentary. To date, tech’s recovery has been driven by the mega-cap tech names, with Nvidia up 156% YTD and Meta up 119%. Small cap names have fared less well, with the (tech heavy) Russell 1000 index of large cap names gaining 11% YTD versus the 5% return of the small cap concentrated Russell 2000. With large cap tech bouncing back, a small cap tech rebound may be on the horizon.

Read the full article here.

Recent technology news

“How AI could spark the next pandemic”

Search engines have plenty of safeguards to deny access to information that could endanger the lives of others. However, from a class exercise to being published in a prestigious journal last month, groups of undergraduate students at MIT were able to gather information and instructions on creating four potential pandemic-level pathogens from AI chatbots.

Read the full article at Vox.

“A ‘Cage Match’ between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg may be no joke.”

Plans for a cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg get more legitimate as the weeks go by. Zuckerberg has reportedly reached out to Dana White, Head of UFC, if Musk was serious about a match-up following Musk’s Twitter response. Last week, prized UFC fighter George St-Pierre and martial artist John Danaher prepared a training session for Musk.

Read the full article at the New York Times.

“Former CRTC head proposes compromise between Liberals and Big Tech over news blocking.”

As Google and Meta pull Canadian news outlets from their platforms, former CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein is looking to find a compromise between the Liberals and Big Tech after the Online News Act was implemented. The path forward according to von Finckenstein, is to suspend the Online News Act and make Big Tech pay into a fund for news outlets, in essence having industry manage the funding model and not the government.

Read the full article at National Post.

 
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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
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
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, Dialogue, 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 – Absolute Software, Calian, Computer Modelling Group, D2L, Payfare, Real Matters, Sangoma, TECSYS

Small Cap Canadian Tech – Alithya, Baylin Tech, BBTV, Blackline Safety, Farmers Edge, Kneat, Optiva, Pivotree, Quarterhill, Sylogist, Terago, Vecima, Vitalhub, WeCommerce

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