Reboot: San Francisco just took a big stand against tech companies

Here it is – your fortnightly tech stocks wrap.

Industry spotlight

San Francisco may be losing its place as the world’s top technology hub.

In recent years the city’s streets have seen wheel-based delivery robots and e-scooters. And low-tech pogo sticks were scheduled to be next – Swedish start up Cangoroo wanted to bring 100,000 of them to San Francisco.

The Fog City is now saying tech companies need permits before dumping new technologies on the streets. And you’ll only get approval if the offering is for the “net public good”.

Another sign is Oracle moving its annual OpenWorld conference from San Francisco to Las Vegas next year. It blamed poor street conditions and high costs.

Meanwhile, if you don’t have a tech degree should you give up on a career in tech? Slack’s Asia Pacific head of growth Arturo Arrarte said this week you shouldn’t, noting founder Stewart Butterfield studied philosophy. He said tech wasn’t just a coders-only club.

“Coding to platform engineering will continue to be valuable within the tech industry, but there is also a strong demand for roles that rely on critical thinking and problem-solving,” Arrarte said.

“A focus on solely hiring employees with traditional tech backgrounds will no longer cut it for business looking to remain truly agile.”

Managing director iCollege (ASX:ICT) Ash Katta told Stockhead he agreed with those sentiments.

“Coding is not just writing a program but understanding the logic – the code is going to give you this outcome,” he said.

“Having a Master of IT will give you the ground level understanding but it doesn’t give you the specific skill set for an employer.”

Small cap spotlight

This fortnight’s top gainer is one you may not recognise at first glance – Opyl (ASX:OPL). That’s because until recently it was Shareroot but a share consolidation and rebranding have now taken effect.

It is using AI to help biopharma and health organisations collect data.

Another company that changed names was ServTech, which is now Vection Technologies (ASX:VR1). The virtual reality play is up 32 per cent in the last fortnight and 178 per cent this year.

In May, Volvo’s Italian division adopted the technology to help customers customise their cars before they buy. By next month it will be fully adopted by the network and Vection hopes to strike deals with other dealers.

A capital raise can often drag companies down, but not Dotz Nano (ASX:DTZ), which recently raised $3m. It also recruited a new chairman — former Woolworths and Myer executive Bernard Brooks.

On a yearly basis 28 stocks have gone double or better. Accounts receivable solution IODM (ASX:IOD) and virtual invisible network provider Netlinkz (ASX:NET) are still the top two stocks having gained 724 per cent and 364 per cent respectively.

Other top performers in 2019 include fintechs Splitit (ASX:SPT) and Wisr (ASX:WZR).

Here are all the ASX small cap technology stocks and their performance in the past fortnight:

Swipe or scroll to reveal the full table. Click headings to sort

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