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Canadian fintech Wave raises $24 million from RBC and other investors

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RBC

Toronto-based Wave, a Canadian financial technology (fintech) firm that offers financial management software to small businesses, has received $32 million CAD ($23.8 million) in capital from investors including the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Exhibition Capital and National Australia Bank (NAB).

Related: Is This The End Of Banking As We Know It?

Other investors in Wave include Portag3 and PowerCorp, who joined existing backers Social Capital, BDC Capital, CRV, Omers Ventures, Harbourvest and OurCrowd in this strategic fundraising round.

The fintech company says it will use the new money to accelerate product development. It particularly wants to invest further in its use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques in order to automate basic accounting functions and give analytics-based insights to its customers about how they can grow.

Wave offers small businesses financial management software that can integrate invoicing, payments, loans, payroll and receipt management functions in order to improve oversight, accounting procedures and cash flow and management activities.
The seven year old firm now employs 150 people. It claims it has more than 2.5 million end users around the world and is adding 60,000 new firms every month to its platform.
“We’re proud to support Wave as they continue to bring solutions to market for entrepreneurs in Canada and around the world,” said Mike Dobbins, head of strategy and corporate development at RBC. “This investment is part of our commitment to support the scale up of emerging fintech companies in our economy, recognizing the critical role they play in Canada’s Innovation agenda.”

Must Read: This Fintech Company Is Taking The Market By Storm

HP Inc CEO says an intern helped spur ‘the birth of a new category’ in printing

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When it comes to innovation, HP Inc. is no laggard. And according to President and CEO Dion Weisler, it was a high school intern that prompted his team to create the company’s new blockbuster printing device, the HP Sprocket.

It started after a presentation HP’s interns deliver to company executives, when Weisler asked the 14- and 15-year-olds if they print. Three of them said they did not — they had no need for it.

“I said, ‘Well, hang on a second, what about putting a photo on your wall?'” the CEO told “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer on Wednesday. “And with perfect innocence, this kid said to me, ‘What, stick my phone on the wall?’ And it was kind of at that point that we said, ‘We’ve got to make print relevant. Emergency meeting, everybody. How are we going to do that?’ and that’s when the idea of the Sprocket came up.”

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Now the $129 device, which allows users to print photos directly from their smartphones, is on fire, perpetually out of stock at retailers like Amazon.

And while Cramer said the mini-printer might be the “hot gift” of 2017 for those of the selfie generation, Weisler considers it as a symbol of something more.

“We think it’s just the birth of a new category,” the CEO said. “It’s about reducing that glide slope of decline that we’d seen in home-based printing, and I think it’s this kind of innovation that really is required and expected of market leaders.”

And according to its latest earnings report, HP has been innovating since its split with Hewlett Packard Enterprises in 2015.

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The company saw revenues up 7 percent from a year ago, and this quarter marked the first time that the personal systems and print segments both rose for the first time since 2010.

Weisler said that while innovation was the driving factor, cutting costs did play a role in what management called a “breakthrough quarter” for HP.

“You’ve got to look at the market, you’ve got to be realistic. Get those costs under control. Then you start to think about, ‘How can we innovate? How can we think through the lens of a customer and deliver sleek, beautiful designs, sprinkles of magic, deliver on a security promise across both printing and personal systems … and, you know, do that in a cost envelope that really adds value to customers. And when you do that, it works,” Weisler told Cramer.

Read: Is This Tiny Gold Mining Company The Next Big Thing?

And as HP’s 3-D printing business kicks off, Weisler sees massive opportunity ahead when it comes to changing the way companies manufacture products.

“We see ways that we can really transform the way traditional manufacturing’s done without warehouses and without tied-up cost to capital,” the CEO said. “In the future, we’re going to democratize manufacturing in a way that really hasn’t changed since the assembly line more than 100 years ago.”

Mark Zuckerberg: The most important thing I built at Harvard

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Ask Mark Zuckerberg about the accomplishment he’s most proud of from his days at Harvard University, and the answer may surprise you. It certainly isn’t inventing Facemash, the website that eventually became Facebook (FB).

“Priscilla is the most important person in my life, and the most important thing I built in my time here,” Zuckerberg said of his wife during a commencement speech at Harvard on Thursday.

The 33-year-old Facebook chief executive spent a significant chunk of his time during the speech reflecting on how he met Chan, a pediatrician he eventually married in 2012.

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“Priscilla was at a party, and I used the romantic line, ‘I’m getting kicked out in 3 days, so we need to go out quickly,” he said with a grin.

Mark Zuckerberg at the Harvard graduation. Associated Press

Chan appears to have had a significant, lasting impression on Zuckerberg, who encouraged him to teach after-school classes to middle school students studying entrepreneurship at a Boys & Girls Club at the Menlo Park, Calif. several years ago.

“They taught me what it was like growing up and feeling targeted for your race and what it’s like having a family member in prison,” recalled Zuckerberg, who taught the students product development and marketing. “I shared stories of my time in school, and they shared their hope that one day they would get to go to college, too. For five years, I’ve had dinner with those students every month. One of them even threw Priscilla and me our first baby shower. And next year? They’re going to college”

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Zuckerberg and Chan, who have a daughter and are expecting their second child later this year, also announced an ambitious effort last September called “Chan Zuckerberg Science.” The $3 billion-plus initiative aims to prevent, cure or manage “all diseases in our children’s lifetime.”

Harvard appears to hold special significance for Zuckerberg, who created what was then called “The Facebook” in his Harvard dorm room in 2004 before dropping out his senior year to pursue Facebook full-time.

Since then, the social network has become the third most-trafficked website in the world. Now Facebook employs over 18,000 people and currently reports 1.28 billion daily active users, 86% of whom live outside the US and Canada.

4 apps you need for summer travel

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Summer is almost here, which means it’s time to take a trip.

But before you send that “out of office” email, you have to book your flights, reserve a rental car and plan an itinerary. It can be a real headache. Here are four apps that’ll make planning your trip a little bit easier.

Lola

First up is Lola, a personal travel agent that can help you book everything from flights to hotels to rental cars. After downloading the app, you answer a few questions about your travel preferences and then start a new trip. Need a hotel? Just open the chat window, provide your travel dates and Lola’s team of experts will respond with options and even book it for you.

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The suggestions they offer are free, but the app may charge fees for some transactions, like $25 for finding and booking a flight. However, that’s a small price to pay if you don’t want to spend hours putting together the perfect itinerary.

Skyscanner

If you’d rather find and book your own travel, then Skyscanner is pretty much a one-stop shop. When it comes to flights, Skyscanner shows you the most affordable options on all major airlines — including Southwest, which you can’t find on third-party sites like Orbitz and Expedia. Skyscanner is also a great place to compare and browse for hotels and rental cars, and you can even set price drop alerts so you never miss a deal.

Grab

For a hungry traveler with a short layover, there are few apps better than Grab. This genius invention lets you pick a restaurant at the airport, look at the entire menu, and then order food from your phone. You pay through the app, so once you get to the terminal, you just grab your grub and go! Grab is currently available at 17 major US airports, including LAX and Dallas Fort Worth.

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Localeaur

It’s easy to miss out on hidden gems when you’re new to a city. Don’t let this happen to you. Localeaur is a handy app that helps visitors avoid tourist traps and discover local hotspots. Looking for the best places eat, drink, and hang out? Open Localeur, which features recommendations from people who actually live there. You can access the app in 40 cities, including New York, San Francisco, and Austin, and each suggestion comes with a blurb from a local explaining why they love it. So skip the McDonald’s, and try something new on your next vacation.

Citadel Has a Big Short Against a Company Buffett Invested In

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Citadel Has a Big Short Against a Company Buffett Invested In
People stand in front of the LANXESS headquarter in Cologne, western Germany, on October 2, 2014. Lanxess is one of the leading chemical companies worldwide. AFP PHOTO / PATRIK STOLLARZ (Photo credit should read PATRIK STOLLARZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Warren Buffett and Ken Griffin’s firms have taken opposing bets on a German chemical company.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s subsidiary General Reinsurance AG said on May 29 it bought a 3 percent stake, worth about $200 million, in Lanxess AG. The same day, Citadel disclosed in a filing that it increased the hedge fund’s short position on Lanxess by 26 percent to $150 million.

What do these two titans of investing see in Cologne-based Lanxess? On a price-to-tangible-book-value basis, a metric often cited by value investor Buffett, Lanxess is cheap. It trades at an 80 percent discount to the S&P 500 Chemicals Index.

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The company is trying to become one of the world’s biggest makers of flame retardants and lubricant additives. In May it bought Chemtura Corp., which had earlier purchased Great Lakes Chemical Corp. In 1999, Berkshire took a stake in Great Lakes, which was one of its least successful investments, according to a note from Jefferies Group. Still, Berkshire seems to have a fondness for additives — it already owns Lubrizol Corp., a Lanxess competitor based in Ohio.

Ted  Weschler, one of Buffett’s deputy investment managers, has been doing a lot of work in Germany for Berkshire recently and has said publicly that he’s looking for investment opportunities there. A Berkshire unit also agreed this year to buy Wilhelm Schulz GmbH, a closely held German maker of piping components.

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While Berkshire tends to hold positions long-term, Citadel, which manages more than $26 billion, may be focusing on Lanxess’s short-term challenges. On May 11, the chemical company said it anticipated its growth rates to slow in the second half after a strong performance in the Asia-Pacific region last year.

Shares of Lanxess, which surged to a four-year high on May 10, dropped 3.8 percent on the company’s forecast. They jumped 8 percent on the May 29 news of Berkshire’s investment and have since retreated a bit to 66.60 euros.

Cisco Has Done Its Part to Send Palo Alto Networks Plunging 40% — Here’s Why It Could Now Be a Buy

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Don’t give up on Palo Alto Networks (PANW) .

Palo Alto Networks, which reports on Wednesday after the close, hasn’t recovered from the bludgeoning it took three months ago after missing January quarter sales/billings estimates and issuing below-consensus April quarter and fiscal 2017 (ends in July) guidance. Shares are down about 40% from their 2015 highs, and sport an enterprise value that’s equal to only 13 times a fiscal 2018 free cash flow consensus of $782 million.
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Intensifying competition from Cisco Systems (CSCO) , which has gotten more serious about growing sales of next-gen firewalls (NGFWs) and subscription security offerings that compete directly with Palo Alto, seems to be a headwind. But Palo Alto insists a lot of its recent problems are due to sales execution after dramatically growing its salesforce in recent quarters, and notes it still added 2,000 customers last quarter (raising the total base above 37,000).

But Palo Alto’s NGFWs still get very high marks for their ease-of-use, integration and software features. And subscription-based add-on products such as WildFire (malware detection) and Traps (endpoint protection) have been well-received. Sales could still be bumpy over the near-term, but between how much shares have fallen and the solid numbers posted by many security tech peers in April and May, the worst might now be over.