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Incredibly, October had some Tech winners! But could they be clinging to a sinking ship?
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- The ASX tech sector managed a 6.88% rise this month despite a suite of negative earnings reports out of the US
- Elmo Software was the biggest winner, up 107% for the month
- Icetana was a close second up 106%
The Aussie tech sector was up a nice 6.88% for the month of October, despite US tech giants making disappointingly limp earnings reports last week.
A bit of a surprise really, since the NASDAQ is tech-heavy and can often drag the ASX tech sector into the whirlpool.
In the early days of the pandemic, technology companies were some of the biggest winners as people’s lives moved online, but with rising interest rates it’s been difficult for companies to maintain that momentum.
Reuters reports that Bank of America Global Research says mega-cap tech companies have plunged a collective $4 trillion in 2022. Yep, $4 TRILLION.
That’s about 4x the value of the entire cryptocurrency market.
Among some heavy losers in October was Microsoft which reported its slowest revenue growth in five years and suggested that the difficult conditions might continue.
Google’s parent company Alphabet said profit dropped 27 per cent from a year earlier.
Amazon missed its sales forecast for Q3 by a slight margin, and Apple managed to report an 8% increase (pcp) in quarterly revenue of $US90.1 billion.
Then there’s Facebook parent Meta which collapsed – again – as its revenue fell for the second straight quarter, wiping out US$90bn from its market cap.
Ooof.
On a lighter note, we’ve rounded up the biggest ASX winners in tech for October for your perusal.
Here are the top ASX tech stocks for the month of October
Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort. Best viewed on a laptop
| Code | Company | Price | % Month | Market Cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ELO | Elmo Software | 4.64 | 107% | $462,194,975 |
| ICE | Icetana Limited | 0.07 | 106% | $13,952,989 |
| NET | Netlinkz Limited | 0.028 | 75% | $91,669,472 |
| FCT | Firstwave Cloud Tech | 0.065 | 63% | $108,053,005 |
| NNG | Nexion Group | 0.11 | 57% | $8,895,811 |
| JXT | Jaxstaltd | 0.028 | 56% | $9,592,190 |
| XRG | Xreality Group Ltd | 0.046 | 53% | $19,480,525 |
| NVX | Novonix Limited | 2.68 | 52% | $1,304,302,143 |
| MOB | Mobilicom Ltd | 0.013 | 44% | $17,306,636 |
| IHR | intelliHR Limited | 0.079 | 44% | $26,859,298 |
| 360 | Life360 Inc. | 6.91 | 40% | $1,291,157,830 |
| LVE | Love Group Global | 0.1 | 39% | $4,053,417 |
| BTH | Bigtincan Hldgs Ltd | 0.73 | 36% | $403,215,612 |
| DLT | Delta Drone Intl Ltd | 0.0135 | 35% | $4,048,465 |
| JAN | Janison Edu Group | 0.465 | 35% | $109,991,327 |
| WBT | Weebit Nano Ltd | 2.75 | 32% | $473,896,970 |
| IOD | Iodm Limited | 0.395 | 32% | $230,202,784 |
| NOR | Norwood Systems Ltd. | 0.021 | 31% | $7,244,811 |
| ODA | Orcoda Limited | 0.084 | 31% | $13,341,194 |
| RCW | Rightcrowd | 0.055 | 31% | $14,424,369 |
| AVA | AVA Risk Group Ltd | 0.235 | 31% | $60,022,439 |
| SEN | Senetas Corporation | 0.035 | 30% | $42,482,847 |
| NTO | Nitro Software Ltd | 2.08 | 29% | $509,738,029 |
| BID | Bill Identity Ltd | 0.09 | 27% | $22,226,252 |
| X2M | X2M Connect Limited | 0.095 | 27% | $13,383,009 |
| RUL | Rpmglobal Hldgs Ltd | 1.9 | 25% | $437,076,169 |
| PPS | Praemium Limited | 0.835 | 25% | $429,197,518 |
| OLL | Openlearning | 0.031 | 24% | $7,443,694 |
| DTC | Damstra Holdings | 0.17 | 21% | $43,808,386 |
| FBR | FBR Ltd | 0.051 | 21% | $170,080,069 |
| DRO | Droneshield Limited | 0.2 | 21% | $86,508,397 |
| PPH | Pushpay Holdings Ltd | 1.14 | 21% | $1,300,904,810 |
| FCL | Fineos Corp Hold PLC | 1.5 | 20% | $479,231,075 |
| LNK | Link Admin Hldg | 3.43 | 20% | $1,759,547,060 |
| LNK | Link Admin Hldg | 3.43 | 20% | $1,759,547,060 |
| FND | Findi Limited | 0.49 | 20% | $15,132,970 |
| HTG | Harvest Tech Grp Ltd | 0.077 | 18% | $45,424,344 |
| TYR | Tyro Payments | 1.53 | 18% | $794,434,789 |
| HSC | HSC Technology Group | 0.0105 | 17% | $22,813,763 |
| SMN | Structural Monitor. | 0.53 | 16% | $71,115,202 |
| KNO | Knosys Limited | 0.096 | 16% | $20,749,315 |
| SMP | Smartpay Holdings | 0.74 | 16% | $176,330,873 |
| XTE | Xtek Limited | 0.53 | 15% | $53,933,703 |
| RKN | Reckon Limited | 1.29 | 15% | $146,150,333 |
| IRE | IRESS Limited | 10.15 | 14% | $1,881,275,684 |
| DTZ | Dotz Nano Ltd | 0.29 | 14% | $130,620,157 |
| TNE | Technology One | 12.05 | 14% | $3,896,558,083 |
| OCL | Objective Corp | 14.84 | 13% | $1,409,942,731 |
| RDY | Readytech Holdings | 3.24 | 13% | $370,402,797 |
| AD8 | Audinate Group Ltd | 8.14 | 13% | $630,393,501 |
The biggest winner was Elmo Software (ASX:ELO), up 107% for the month after fending off acquisition propositions from a few directions, including Accel-KK.
The company ummed and aahhed but was clearly holding out for a better deal, which it got from K1 Investment Management – a Los Angeles-based private investment firm focused exclusively on partnering with enterprise software companies.
(Notable past investments in other high growth Australian-based software companies include simPRO, Cyara, AroFlo and RosterLive.)
Elmo entered into a scheme Implementation Deed with K1 on October 26, with shareholders standing to pocket a whopping $4.85 cash per share.
That amounts to a 100.4% premium to the last trading price of ELMO shares on 12 October 2022, the final trading day prior to ELMO’s announcement that it had received an expression of interest in acquiring the company.
“The ELMO Independent Board Committee has carefully considered the proposal and believes the offer price of $4.85 cash per share represents compelling value for ELMO shareholders,” chairman Barry Lewin said.
“Whilst ELMO has achieved considerable success to date in Australia/New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the IBC has balanced this against the macroeconomic and execution risks in achieving future plans and has unanimously concluded that the Scheme is a compelling option which realises attractive value for our shareholders.”
Since the news broke, ELMO has held steady at $4.65 per share, just $0.20 shy of the offer from K1.
Who’s in second place?
In a close second was Artificial Intelligence (AI) player iCetana (ASX:ICE), up 106% for the month, off the back of a strategic investment, nice quarterly results and new orders.
The strategic investment came from global technology giant Macnica in the form of $500,000 to secure a 14% stake in company.
iCetana says the funds will be used to accelerate its commercialisation activities and increasing global sales channels utilising Macnica’s very strong global distribution platform for iCetana’s motion intelligence software.
Macnica will also become the exclusive distributor of iCetana in Japan and Brazil as well as a preferred distributor in other territories.
For the September quarter the company reported Annualised Recurring Revenue (ARR) of $1.6m, up 20% year on year and 5% quarter on quarter.
Plus, towards the end of the month, they nabbed two new orders for its AI software solution from reseller Rasilient, for US state prison end-users, valued at US$56,250 in aggregate for five-year licence terms.
“The prisons market has always offered a particularly strong use-case for iCetana’s AI software,” CEO and MD Matt Macfarlane says.
Who made +50% gains?
The Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform was up 75%, achieving revenue for the September quarter of $4.2m, a 45% increase on the previous quarter despite being adversely impacted by rolling lockdowns in Beijing and Shanghai where the company’s China operations are based.
NET also launched four new Virtual Secure Network (VSN) product bundles – Express, ExpressPlus, ExpressPass and CCTV Protect – and established an equity placement facility of $20.5m “to position for further anticipated growth”.
FIRSTWAVE CLOUD TECHNOLOGY (ASX:FCT)
Up 63%, the cybersecurity and network management company saw several new client wins in the September quarter including L3Harris and Viaero Wireless in North America who both licensed FirstWave’s monitoring products in multiyear deals of two and three years respectively.
Several existing monitoring clients – most notably NASA in North America – and Services Australia, increased the number of devices under their licence agreements, and engaged the company’s professional services team.
And FirstWave’s security team was commissioned to build a sovereign email platform in Australia to comply with the “information security manual” as defined by the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
The build has commenced, and it is anticipated the platform will be launched to the Australian government and large enterprise market in Q3 FY23.
The global cloud service provider was up 57% for the month, and says it delivered its highest quarter revenue since inception, on the back of the sixth consecutive quarter of revenue growth.
Revenue was $2.25m which is up 13.9% on the previous quarter and up a massive 80.02% on the prior corresponding period in FY22.
Recurring revenue of $1.79m up 12.6% on the previous quarter and 111.33% on the prior corresponding period in FY22.
“Customer contract renewals and extensions for additional services consumed from partners such as IBM, sees the group TCV (total contract value) and monthly contracted revenue also hit their highest marks,” the company said.
The world’s largest dedicated database of official music credits was up 56% in October, and Paul Wiltshire, CEO of Songtradr becoming a substantial shareholder with a 7% stake might have had something to do with it.
“The Jaxsta platform continues to evolve with the business gaining great momentum this year,” CEO Beth Appleton said.
“We have only scratched the surface with regard to the full potential of our platform and data.
“We look forward to delivering a product offering that we believe will transform the company.”
Up 53% was Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) player xReality, who signed a distribution agreement with US based company, Acrolect Solutions LLC DBA Endurance Group (Endurance Group), for the distribution of its Operator Tactical Solution’s (Operator TS) Military and Law Enforcement product range.
It turns out Endurance Group had some good feedback from their client base – which included North American and European Special Forces organisation – and accelerated their efforts to progress the MOU to a completed distribution agreement.
The US market forms a significant part of the Operator TS growth strategy due to its scale, with the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), home to all Special Forces, having around 70,000 personnel, and the broader US Armed Forces consisting of over 2.1 million personnel.
Lithium battery play Novonix (ASX:NVX) was up 52%, nabbing a US$150m grant from the US Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the Biden Administration’s push to deliver downstream lithium and graphite materials for US-made EV batteries.
But shortly afterwards they were in hot water after the ASX enquired why the company had only released an announcement on the 20th – instead of the 14th which was the day it was granted.
Novonix said at the time it received the grant (14th Oct), it considered the information to be an incomplete proposal or negotiation.
“The correspondence from the DOE also stated that NVX was prohibited from disclosing its selection for negotiation of a financial award prior to the DOE making a public announcement about the matter.”
Novonix is currently building its first 10,000tpa plant for battery grade synthetic graphite, deploying a process it says delivers a 60% reduction in carbon intensity relative to traditional Chinese synthetic graphite, and will receive a grant of US$150m for a new plant in Chattanooga to produce 30,000tpa for EV makers.
