Wall Street Wildlife Investing Podcast

We started the Telescope Investing podcast exactly one year ago with no expectations, and along the way, we’ve connected with some awesome people and learnt a lot. This week, we’re joined by a few friends who have been with us on our podcasting journey, to celebrate our first year of the pod. Don’t expect much on investing wisdom, just fun and laughs as we kick back and talk about ourselves and our reflections on a year of doing the pod. And competitive as always, we face-off in a quiz at the end to see which of us really knows more about stocks! A free dinner is on the line so the steaks are not high, more medium. We'd like to thank Duniya, Ramesh and Matt for taking the time to join us, and for all support they have given us over the past year. And a big thanks to our growing base of subscribers too. Here's to many more years of looking through the Telescope! ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

The use of digital payments is expanding across the globe, but the transition to a digital financial system is still in its early stages. Fintech companies are receiving heavy investment, as agile companies find new ways to innovate in the payment space. In this week’s pod, we're delighted to be joined by Jonathan Rowland, founder and executive chairman of Mode, to give us an inside view on the rise of digital wallets, and the convergence of Open Banking and cryptocurrency in retail. Jonathan shares his expert insight on recent developments such as buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) following Square’s high-profile acquisition of Afterpay. We also get side-tracked onto the future of remote work! Mode is a fintech and digital payments company, combining the best of payments, investment, loyalty, and digital assets. Mode is headquartered in the UK, and listed on the LSE and US OTCQB market. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: MODE, SQ. ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Back in episode #12 of the podcast, we talked about investing for your children. At some point, your children will leave the nest and take control of their own finances, and we believe that financial education early in life is a big advantage in navigating the world of money and investing! This week on the podcast, we're joined by our good friend, Duniya, to talk about how parents can prepare their children to manage their finances responsibly and successfully. Brian Feroldi slide deck: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YV3mou5FQDkfBgtu3eACMtSye3xadrtDlu_URBTA2JA/edit?usp=sharing https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/family-and-care/talk-money/how-to-talk-to-your-children-about-money https://www.gohenry.com/uk/ ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

This week, we deep dive another stock in our 2021 model portfolio, CrowdStrike. It seems that hacking is constantly in the news with disturbing reports of spyware infiltrating our devices and ransomware attacks against government agencies, corporations, and public services. CrowdStrike aims to protect these systems from hackers with an advanced cybersecurity platform powered by artificial intelligence and modern security foundations. According to Gartner, the worldwide cybersecurity market is predicted to reach $150B this year. While this is a huge market, it is dwarfed by the estimated $6T of economic damage to be caused by cybercrime in 2021, and this figure is expected to grow 15% per year to reach $10.5T by 2025.  CrowdStrike is a leading provider of endpoint security. Endpoints include personal computers, servers, mobiles, tablets and IoT devices, all potentially vulnerable to hackers attempting to access corporate and government systems. There were an estimated 31B connected devices in 2020 and this is expected to grow to 75B by 2025. CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 by former McAfee executives, George Kurtz and Dimitri Alperovitch. Its Falcon cybersecurity platform is cloud-native, designed and built for the cloud to provide modern endpoint protection and threat intelligence. This SaaS business model allows them to scale quickly and cost-effectively with near-limitless capacity. The power of CrowdStrike’s platform comes from their 'Threat Graph' breach prevention engine. It collects data from the entire CrowdStrike customer base and uses artificial intelligence, behavioural analytics, and human experts to predict where the next major threat will appear. It has, in effect, crowdsourced threat detection and prevention with a powerful network effect where each additional customer makes the platform stronger for all customers. CrowdStrike's services are packaged into modules and customers can just pay for the modules they require to get started, adding others as their businesses grow and their requirements increase. This 'land and expand' growth strategy has resulted in a DBNER of over 120% for several years running. The number of customers using 4 or more modules has grown from 27% in FY2018 to 61% in FY2021. As of 30 Apr 2021, they have 11,420 subscription customers, a YoY increase of 83%. CrowdStrike have partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM, Google Cloud, and many players in the cybersecurity space. CrowdStrike is the recommended endpoint protection for AWS which has been instrumental in the adoption of CrowdStrike by small to midsize businesses. Cybersecurity is an inherently risky business, and breaches can damage a company’s reputation and customer perception. As a sign of confidence in their platform and capabilities, CrowdStrike offers a warranty with their Falcon Complete subscription level to cover $1M of incident response expenses for breaches suffered by a customer under their watch. The company has been growing quickly for a number of years with a total revenue CAGR from FY2017 to FY2021 of 102%. Growth rates are slowing as the company gains market share but remains high, with a 70% YoY increase reported in the latest quarter. The gross margin has been improving quickly, rising from 57% in FY2018 to 77% in the latest quarter. With a market cap of $60B and a P/S ratio of just under 60, the company has a valuation to reflect its high rate of growth. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: CRWD, ZS, MSFT, AMZN, S ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Bad advice is all around us, financial or otherwise, and it is sometimes difficult to separate the good advice from the bad. We asked our listeners about the bad financial advice they've heard or seen, and in the pod this week, we discuss some of the doozies we received. Some anecdotes are relatively trivial, but some are more serious with potentially ruinous consequences. We look at them from both sides and see if there is anything we can learn from them. We also have a couple of gambling stories because that’s just fun! ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

An early pioneer in advertising, John Wanamaker once said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” In today’s world of digital and programmatic advertising, content is created at a rapid and growing pace, driven in large part by the exponential growth of social media and video, adding new dimensions to trust in the marketing world. Advertisers are increasingly focused on brand reputation and they want to ensure that their ads appear in contexts that match their values, and also that they’re seen by eyeballs and not algorithms! On this week’s pod, we deep-dive another potential hypergrowth stock, Integral Ad Science (IAS), one of the emerging leaders in ad viewability, ad fraud, and ad safety and suitability. Founded in 2009 and IPO’d on 30 June 2021 at a valuation of $3.3B. Insider ownership is low at 1%, and a 70% controlling interest is still held post IPO by Vista Equity Partners, a US private equity investment firm who have other investments in the ad-tech space. Based on a March 2021 analysis by Frost & Sullivan, the global market opportunity for ad verification solutions is $9.5 billion (growing at a 16.2% CAGR), and the global market for ad measurement and effectiveness solutions is $6.3 billion (growing at a 20.5% CAGR). eMarketer estimates that the global non-search digital advertising market surpassed $180 billion in 2020, and will grow to over $270 billion by 2023. Marketers are increasingly aware of wasted media spend related to ad fraud (for example, when ads are served to bots or non-human traffic instead of real people) or viewability issues (for example, when ads are served but cannot be viewed by a person). Juniper Research estimates advertisers will lose approximately $100 billion in annual ad spend to ad fraud in 2024, an increase from approximately $42 billion in 2019. Powered by artificial intelligence, IAS’s solutions identify non-human traffic by automatically detecting new threats and uncommon patterns, however, there is justified scepticism by experts around the effectiveness of IAS’s technology, although these claims apply equally to their competitors - and to some extent, digital marketing companies have few options if they want to protect, or at least to be seen to protect, their customers’ ad investment. With over 2,000 customers, IAS are one of the more dominant providers in their market. Between 2018 and 2020, their average revenue per customer for their top 100 customers has grown at a CAGR of 22%. In 2020, Twitter announced new partnership agreements with Integral Ad Science and a competitor, DoubleVerify, to provide advertisers with increased assurance around the placement of ads on a Twitter timeline, safeguarding against potential brand association with controversial content. IAS’s total revenue for 2020 was $241M a modest increase of 12.7% YoY. Dollar-based net retention rate reduced from 112% to 108%, but this may be a consequence of deferred advertising spend during H1 2020 due to the pandemic. IAS are operating at the intersection of a number of trends in the ad industry: programmatic ads, connected TV, social media, ad safety, consumer privacy and the localisation of global brands. IAS is an early-stage investment opportunity with significant growth potential however, investments of this type come with significant inherent risks. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: IAS, MGNI, TTD, DV, TWTR ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

It’s time for the half-year review of our model portfolio, a collection of 15 stocks that we selected in January as our core investments for 2021. The sell-off in growth stocks earlier this year made for grim reading at the end of Q1, but many of these stocks have rebounded - ten of the stocks in the model portfolio are now up from our start date, with nine of them beating the market (S&P 500). Unfortunately, a couple of big losers are dragging down the overall return. While it’s probably too early to declare that “growth is back!”, our portfolio performance at the end of Q2 is much closer to the benchmark of the S&P 500 index. In today's episode, we dig into some of the key stories and updates from the portfolio. Shopify (SHOP) are showing their developers some love by forgoing commissions on the first $1 million of revenue, every year. Investors were not impressed with the news at first, but it appears that they have come around to Tobi Lutke and his team’s vision, and the stock is back to near all-time highs. Shopify are "arming the rebels" against the Amazonian Empire and this move is just the latest in their customer-centric growth strategy. MercadoLibre (MELI) and Sea (SE) showed amazing growth in their respective businesses in their Q1 earnings releases, but the performance of their stock are markedly different. There’s been talk about Sea and MercadoLibre battling it out for their share in the Latin American e-commerce market, but at only around 5% market penetration, we think there’s is plenty of growth to capture, with room for both companies to prosper. Teladoc Health’s (TDOC) share price has not recovered and it's the worst performer in the portfolio to date! Much of this is due to lacklustre customer growth projections for the coming year, with almost zero growth expected. What the market might not be fully accounting for is the forecast increase in revenues per customer, as customers with long-term health conditions form a lasting relationship with Teladoc.  The biggest winner in the portfolio was Cloudflare (NET), a leader in edge computing. Edge computing brings online resources closer to the customer, lowering response times and improving customer experience. In the most recent quarter, Cloudflare announced a partnership with Nvidia to bring its AI tools to the edge. The removal of third-party cookies from web browsers is playing havoc with online advertising businesses. However, Google delaying their plans gave programmatic ad companies like The Trade Desk (TTD) and our model portfolio pick, Magnite (MGNI) a reprieve as they work on replacement technologies for targeted ads. Investors are still cautious about the impacts of these changes, but in the long term, the removal of third-party cookies may help supply-side platforms (SSP) like Magnite as they have direct access to first-party data. Interim results from a clinical trial from Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA) showed strong evidence that CRISPR-based therapies can work inside the body and gave a boost to all other CRISPR companies including our model portfolio pick, Editas Medicine (EDIT). The following companies are mentioned in this episode: SHOP, MELI, SE, TDOC, AMZN, NET, FSLY, MGNI, EDIT, NTLA, SQ, ISRG, GH, CRWD, TWLO, DOCU, FVRR, DIS, NVDA ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

The world is moving to the “anywhere economy” where workers have the option to do anything from anywhere, and a key capability enabling this megatrend is the use of digital agreements and e-signatures. This week, we deep dive into DocuSign. Already the global leader in e-signatures, DocuSign are expanding their capabilities to support the entire life cycle of a digital agreement with their 'Agreement Cloud' suite of services. The digital transaction management market is currently estimated to be worth $50B, and DocuSign has 70% of the e-signature market. Research has shown that on average $36 is saved per agreement just from using e-signatures. Digital signatures are more secure and are easier to prove authenticity. Digital documents are easier to store, organise, search and analyse. Customers who see the benefits of having their agreements signed and managed digitally are unlikely to go back to paper. And with over 350 integrations with other systems, such as Microsoft, Google and Salesforce, customers can more easily integrate DocuSign into their existing processes and workflows. With their 'Agreement Cloud', DocuSign aims to support the entire lifecycle of digital agreements, from preparation to signing, execution and ongoing management. Strategic acquisitions have bolstered their capabilities in each of the stages. The acquisition of Seal Software in 2020 brought in the use of AI to analyse digital contracts; LiveOak in 2020 brought in online notarization, a service they released earlier this year; DocuSign also acquired Clause in 2021, with the aim of enhancing digital contracts into “living documents” with interactivity and digital functionality. DocuSign has grown its paying customers from 54,000 in 2012 to 892,000 by the end of 2020, representing a CAGR of 42%. They now have over one million paying customers with over one billion users in over 180 countries. Customers come from a wide range of sectors, from financial services and real estate to life science and government, with over 90% of Fortune 500 companies using DocuSign. Competitors in the e-signature space such as Adobe Sign and HelloSign (owned by DropBox) have largely stayed out of the market of contract lifecycle management. Adobe in particular has stated they do not want to be the system of record for documents. DocuSign is betting that businesses see value in having an ecosystem for digital agreements. The company has grown from a $4.4B market cap to $54B in just over three years, suggesting that they’re on the right track. CEO, Dan Springer estimates that the company is still less than 10% penetrated in its market. Their Q1 revenues for this year reached $469M, 7.6% higher than their own estimates just a few months ago, indicating higher demand for their products than even they expected. Full-year revenues are expected to reach $2B this year. GAAP gross margin increased 75% in the same period last year to 78%, while the dollar-based net retention rate (DBNRR) was 125%, demonstrating the value they are adding for existing customers. DocuSign raised $690M through a sale of convertible senior notes earlier this year, strengthening its cash position to $876M. The following companies are mentioned in this episode: DOCU, ADBE, DBX ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

On this week’s pod, we discuss the megatrend of an ageing population and some of the investing opportunities (and risks) this trend creates in society. The average human life expectancy has increased by 10 years since 2000 to almost 73 - modern medical technology, pharmaceuticals, and standards of care mean we’re all living longer healthier lives. At the same time, birth rates are declining. If these trends continue, most countries are projected to have shrinking populations by the end of the century, with some countries expecting their populations to halve by 2100! A longer life expectancy is great for the individual but may mean that younger generations will have to contribute more to support older ones, or that people will have to work longer and retire later. Key challenges such as funding for healthcare and social care for the elderly need to be tackled by governments, supported by private industry It’s a fact of life that we are more susceptible to ailments as we get older. A healthy lifestyle can only reduce the chances of serious illnesses, not eliminate them completely. Preventative and proactive healthcare solutions can help to mitigate the conditions that occur more frequently in later years, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Companies such as Teladoc, Alphabet and Apple are delivering technology to assist with health monitoring, and enable preventative healthcare A larger retired population will increase the demand for cost-effective and also luxury travel and entertainment. Those leading longer and healthier lives will want to enjoy themselves in their golden years, and this will create a greater need for social hubs and activities for retirees Calico, a ‘moonshot’ subsidiary of Alphabet, are a research lab with the goal of combating ageing and associated diseases. They’re partnering with other research labs and companies to deliver healthcare solutions, and in 2020 announced a drug for treating solid tumours Alphabet also has Verily Life Sciences (formerly Google Life Sciences), a research organisation devoted to the study of life sciences with the aim of digitising healthcare with research programs in digital surgery, pathology and immunology The following companies are mentioned in this episode: GOOG, TDOC, AAPL, ISRG ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope

Just over a year ago, when the coronavirus pandemic was beginning, we both started investing journals, to capture our thoughts about life, and the investment opportunities presented by the rapidly changing environment. Initially, our diaries were intended to stop us from making rash investment decisions during a time of mass panic and high uncertainty, but these personal reflections have since evolved into the Telescope Investing podcast! In this week’s pod, we revisit some of our journal entries from that period of wild volatility and uncertainty. We saw early signs of the types of businesses that would benefit from stay-at-home orders, and we make some predictions and some investments based on our forecasts of how the business landscape would be impacted. It's now one year later, so how did we do? The following companies are mentioned in this episode: NFLX, SHOP, ZS, TRIP, ZG, MELI, DIS, SQ, DOCU, ZM, BYND, TDOC, FB, TSLA, GOOG ----- If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing at https://telescopeinvesting.com/subscribe/ Or you can contact the hosts: LukeTelescope AlbertTelescope