VIDEO - Technology Update June 2018

June was hectic with a number of technology companies announcing updates with plenty of takeaways for investors.

From Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) WWDC event to Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Github acquisition announcement at E3, the heavy hitters in the tech space were certainly active last month. 

In terms of fintech, the Royal Bank of Canada (TSX:RY) who at its investor day conference revealed that it will be spending $3.2 billion on technology in 2018. The bank has been aggressive on tech as more and more people move to apps for everyday transactions.  PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) also stressed on digital payments at its investor day conference by following up on its commitments by acquiring two companies for US$520 million in June.

WestPac (ASX:WBC) announced an agreement with FitPay to allow customers of Australia’s oldest bank to make secure contactless payments on numerous devices including smartwatches.

The news from WestPac made sense as later in the month we saw a report from Juniper Research who said that the contactless user base is expected to touch 760 million in 2020.

In terms of cleantech, this sector also had a busy month as there was news from several of its sub verticals, from electric vehicles (EVs) to wind and solar generation to fuel cells.

One of the highlights of the month was a report from LevelTen energy, who uses a technology-enabled marketplace to connect C&I customers to marketscale projects. The company said that the power purchase agreement prices in the United States for both solar and wind have dropped consistently in the US.

Over in 3D printing, one of the big gainers of the month was NanoDimension (NASDAQ:NNDM) with the company achieving US govt certified vendor status. Shares of Nano Dimension gained over 100 percent after the announcement as the company can now conduct business directly with the US federal government and its many agencies.

Finally in cybersecurity, CrowdStrike, a company backed by big names including CapitalG , an investment arm of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), raised $200 million in the latest round of funding. Media reports indicate that a potential IPO is on the way.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Bala Yogesh, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.