Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. Late last month,
Speaker 1: though you might have noticed that Toro, the digital stock
Speaker 1: broker delaying it's ten point four billion dollars back listing.
Speaker 1: We'll get into that for an update on the business
Speaker 1: here at Milk, and let's bring in Yoni Ascia. Did
Speaker 1: I say it right? I'm trying to co founder and
Speaker 1: CEO of Toro, the company, pointing out it is the
Speaker 1: world's largest trading network right here at Milk and normally
Speaker 1: based in Israel, but doing a little bit of traveling
Speaker 1: now that the world is opening up. How are you
Speaker 1: very good? Very good? Excited to being away for first
Speaker 1: and twenty five years. Really yeah. I used to spend
Speaker 1: here a lot as a kid, but I have I
Speaker 1: haven't been here for a while. A lot of things
Speaker 1: have changed a little bit. Well, I'm just just here.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Toro and what's been going on. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get into um your listing, but in the meantime,
Speaker 1: talk about the business and the growth. What are you seeing. Well,
Speaker 1: we've seen explosive growth over the past eighteen months, really
Speaker 1: starting as we talked about before, with with the beginning
Speaker 1: of the pyndemic, just at inflection point in the rise
Speaker 1: of retail investors, with a whole new generation across the world,
Speaker 1: millennials realizing that they want to invest in the markets,
Speaker 1: whether it's stock markets, whether it's US stock markets, or
Speaker 1: whether it's crypto markets, just increased interest all around the world.
Speaker 1: We founded the company in two thousand seven with a
Speaker 1: vision of opening the global markets for everyone to trade
Speaker 1: investment as simpler and transparent way. And up until twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: beginning of twenty twenty, we had about twelve million registered
Speaker 1: users and since then we added more than eleven a
Speaker 1: new million registered users by the end of the first
Speaker 1: half one, so basically we double the company, more than
Speaker 1: double the company. So twenty three million registered users worldwide
Speaker 1: grew by five point six million mergisitry users the first
Speaker 1: six month this year, after growing about five million registered
Speaker 1: users the entire of last year. We've so we've grown
Speaker 1: significantly our business and we've seen the shift for the
Speaker 1: first crypto rally in two thousand and seventeen, we've seen
Speaker 1: our business grow rapidly from sixty million dollar commission to
Speaker 1: three million dollars from two thousand and sixteen, really driven
Speaker 1: by the first Crypto Rally, and then we saw Crypto Winter,
Speaker 1: and then Crypto Winter we sort of drove, We drove
Speaker 1: our customers who came to it Toro to trade back
Speaker 1: then you know, x rap Etherium to diversify into equities
Speaker 1: through the social network where they can actually see what
Speaker 1: other people are trading and see each other's performance and
Speaker 1: copy the most successful investors. And and then we saw
Speaker 1: Crypto Winter shifted the business into equities and commission free
Speaker 1: stock trading worldwide, and then started this year with Crypto
Speaker 1: Rally two point which is just an amazing rally. Only
Speaker 1: I hear what you're saying and imagine some of our
Speaker 1: listeners are thinking of themselves. Wait a second. This is
Speaker 1: a similar story as to what propelled robin Hood to
Speaker 1: the public markets in a relatively short time into such
Speaker 1: massive growth in RWY one. But we are seeing that
Speaker 1: robin had chairs are down more partly due to some
Speaker 1: softness with company referred to as seasonality earlier this year.
Speaker 1: Are you seeing any of that decline in activity, any
Speaker 1: of that seasonality that we heard from robin Hood so
Speaker 1: sensitive to the fact that during the word process of
Speaker 1: transforming from a private company to a public company. I
Speaker 1: can only share companies data relevant for the first six
Speaker 1: month which we published, which were very good. We did
Speaker 1: update the markets that Q three, and this is something
Speaker 1: you can look at exchange data. So equities have been
Speaker 1: software in Q three if you look just an exchange data,
Speaker 1: options data, volumes and equities and volatility have gone down
Speaker 1: generally in the markets. Uh. And now we're seeing obviously
Speaker 1: crypto rally two point oh the longest crypto rally in
Speaker 1: crypto history in Q four, sort of returning with a roar,
Speaker 1: so hoping to see Bitcoin reach all time high. Already
Speaker 1: peaked and touched actually market cap all time high over
Speaker 1: the last forty eight hours. So very interesting to see
Speaker 1: what's happening in crypto in Q four. You who are
Speaker 1: you competing against? Is it robin Hood? Is it all
Speaker 1: of the online trading platforms, even the establishment? Who is it?
Speaker 1: So the way we see it, and again we're very
Speaker 1: global and uh, we have our businesses Europe, US, Asia,
Speaker 1: Latin America, Middle East were regulated across the world and
Speaker 1: in every single country. What we see is the discount
Speaker 1: brokerage one point was very much consolidated by the local banks.
Speaker 1: So here you know schwab Bot t D Morgan Stanley
Speaker 1: bought e Trade and we see the same in Germany
Speaker 1: and Italy and Spain, in the UK everywhere. But who
Speaker 1: were really competing in against is those super apps, right,
Speaker 1: apps like Toro, who are attractive to a new audience,
Speaker 1: new customers, customers that are beginning their trading activity are
Speaker 1: looking for new tools for ways to engage and learn,
Speaker 1: how to trade the markets, how to participate in the markets,
Speaker 1: and a lot of great company needs just expending the
Speaker 1: audience and expending the markets. You know, you mentioned that
Speaker 1: you're in the process of transitioning from a private company
Speaker 1: to a public company. Is it's still going to happen
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter. We are currently expecting the de
Speaker 1: spec process in Q four and very excited about this
Speaker 1: transition at a ten point four billion dollar valuations. Still
Speaker 1: with Betty Cohen's back fintech acquisition. Yes, yes, f TCV,
Speaker 1: f d c V, it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen
Speaker 1: in Q four, currently in progress. I think could you
Speaker 1: derail it? You know, I come from capital markets. There's
Speaker 1: always probabilities of something happening somewhere sometime, but bitcoin is
Speaker 1: also here to stay. One last question twenty seconds here.
Speaker 1: Is it a younger demo that definitely is using the platform?
Speaker 1: Is that who it is? Or is it it's younger
Speaker 1: demo versus the incumbents? For sure the media and agenty
Speaker 1: tour is thirty four versus sixty plus and some of
Speaker 1: the incumbents stay in touch. We want to talk with you,
Speaker 1: especially when you go through um your growing public in
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter. Yoni, thank you so much, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. He is co found or CEO of E
Speaker 1: Tour Road joining us here at the Milk and Institute
Speaker 1: Global Conference. Uh. Fascinating right in terms of the growth,
Speaker 1: really fascinating you on you've got to come visit us
Speaker 1: in New York too, Yes, alright, November. We're gonna hold
Speaker 1: you do it. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week Carl Master,
Speaker 1: Tim Stanovic and this is Bloomberg. Well, earlier today we
Speaker 1: spoke with Bridgewater Associate Sustainability co c i O Karen
Speaker 1: Carneal Tambore at the Milk and Global Conference, and this excerpt.
Speaker 1: Karen told us all about how investors are increasingly more
Speaker 1: interested in having portfolios aligned with E s G. Check
Speaker 1: it out. The revolution that I feel like has occurred
Speaker 1: is that a few years ago, a very very small
Speaker 1: subset investors really wanted to talk about this issue, and
Speaker 1: now predominant number of investors say, I care about this issue.
Speaker 1: My stakehold does care about this issue. I want my
Speaker 1: capital aligned. Now, what does it mean? How do you
Speaker 1: measure it? How do you actually do it at a
Speaker 1: whole portfolio level. That's evolving very quickly, from very nasons
Speaker 1: to developing very quickly. And one of the biggest shifts
Speaker 1: you're seeing is, you know, people went from kind of
Speaker 1: knock caring about it, to let's do it with like
Speaker 1: a tiny part of my portfolio, have a couple of
Speaker 1: really awesome projects to write about my annual report, to
Speaker 1: wait a minute, if this actually matters. It matters at
Speaker 1: a whole portfolio level. I need to see a top
Speaker 1: down across all the asset classes. Think about my strategic
Speaker 1: acid allocation? How do you think about measuring it? So
Speaker 1: we are a systematic fund. We do everything systematically. So
Speaker 1: when I started approaching this issue with my team, we
Speaker 1: were sort of saying, we have to find a way
Speaker 1: to systematically measure it, and I think the systemization matters
Speaker 1: even more here than in other issues because you have
Speaker 1: so much personal opinions. You don't want to rely on
Speaker 1: you know, someone in the morning saying I think this
Speaker 1: company is good, I think it's bad. So we basically
Speaker 1: try to build a process that goes through thousands of
Speaker 1: securities around the world and assesses their alignment to the
Speaker 1: United Nations s TGS. What is the connection that you
Speaker 1: found between that measure and returns? I think the most
Speaker 1: valuable way for investors to think about it is that
Speaker 1: there's sort of two dimensions or even three dimensions you
Speaker 1: want to think about investing. There's the part that's just
Speaker 1: about returns, where all you need to do is look
Speaker 1: at what's happening in the world right now, with the
Speaker 1: energy crisis, with what's happening in fiscal policy, to say, clearly,
Speaker 1: if my job as an investor is to imagine what's
Speaker 1: going to happen in the world relevant to what's priced in,
Speaker 1: I can't ignore these issues. It's obviously causing big changes
Speaker 1: and assets and so on and so forth, and going
Speaker 1: to drive our broad outlook. There's the risk side, which
Speaker 1: is you know, typical risk controls are not walking figured
Speaker 1: to think about what if we have a bad climate
Speaker 1: outcome or a fast climate transition. But then you have
Speaker 1: this third dimension, which is just impact saying, yeah, I
Speaker 1: could maybe find ways to make money that are unaligned
Speaker 1: with this, but I actually want my money aligned with this.
Speaker 1: Beyond just thinking about returns. I want to be contributing
Speaker 1: to these issues. Karen, tim and I talk all this
Speaker 1: time that you know, here we are going through quarterly
Speaker 1: earnings and you know we're looking at margins, top, bottom line,
Speaker 1: all these different metrics, like we get this right and
Speaker 1: and investors get this. Shouldn't there be some kind of
Speaker 1: E S G metric? How do we find a way
Speaker 1: to let the companies make that transition that might have
Speaker 1: a financial impact. Does the SEC need to come up
Speaker 1: with symmetrics that says every quarter, we want to know revenues,
Speaker 1: we want to know earnings. But we also went into
Speaker 1: the E S G metric and that's gonna matter. Well,
Speaker 1: I think E S G is a really broad universe
Speaker 1: and every environmental or social issue this is going to develop.
Speaker 1: But let me take the one that's furthest along, which
Speaker 1: is carbon. Because you have this world where basically every
Speaker 1: government in the world has said I want to find
Speaker 1: a way to transition my economy to have net zero emissions.
Speaker 1: And now there's a very clear path of for every
Speaker 1: company you can actually say, well, what are they responsible for?
Speaker 1: What are their emissions? And if you take seriously that
Speaker 1: governments through time will find a way to transition and
Speaker 1: put the policies in place, whether it's incentives or taxes
Speaker 1: or whatnot, companies that don't do it are going to
Speaker 1: have a problem. And so with carbon I think we
Speaker 1: have the clear path of this is literally what needs
Speaker 1: to be measured. I think most companies know they're gonna
Speaker 1: be forced to report their carbon footprint. They're going to
Speaker 1: be forced to report it in different ways. There's a
Speaker 1: couple of different templates that have been created out there
Speaker 1: of what that reporting is like, and it's giving investors
Speaker 1: a very clear roadmap between kind of government commitments, this
Speaker 1: is what we want the economy to do, to specific
Speaker 1: company reports of whether or not they're aligned with that,
Speaker 1: what's the penalty then ultimately, well just look at the
Speaker 1: amount of capital all around the world that shifting. Investors
Speaker 1: are pretty clearly saying that they want to be aligned
Speaker 1: with putting their capital towards where we'll be aligned with
Speaker 1: an zero transition. How many people have made a commitment
Speaker 1: saying I want my portfolio to be net zero, but
Speaker 1: they'll give up some performance because of that. Well, with
Speaker 1: you're a large institution and you have a multi decade
Speaker 1: commitment to being aligned with a zero, that's a bindyconstraint.
Speaker 1: You don't really have any choice. You've got to go
Speaker 1: meet that commitment, alright. That was Karen Carnel Tambor. She
Speaker 1: is the co c i O for sustainability of our
Speaker 1: Bridgewater Associates. We caught up with her here at the
Speaker 1: Milk and Institute Global Conference. Keep in mind, folks, we
Speaker 1: know this. You know this. We talk about it sustainable investment.
Speaker 1: It is growing assets, in fact, up to thirty five
Speaker 1: point three trillion dollars globally last year, amid mounting concerns
Speaker 1: about societal inequities and climate change. We're seeing him so
Speaker 1: much money go into this area. I go, we see
Speaker 1: a lot of money going into it. But I go
Speaker 1: back to the question that you and I ask over
Speaker 1: and over again about metrics and about you know what
Speaker 1: moves Netflix is stock tomorrow? Is it Netflix's comments about
Speaker 1: s G it's Netflix's comments about subscribers in the most
Speaker 1: recent quarter and how they're thinking about this current quarter.
Speaker 1: And I got what she said about you know, being
Speaker 1: carbon neutral, right or net neutral in terms of what
Speaker 1: governments are requiring companies to do. But I do feel
Speaker 1: like that I wonder if the metrics need to be
Speaker 1: amped up a little bit and what do those metrics
Speaker 1: look like? Yeah, exactly, because there a standardization of them, exactly.
Speaker 1: But it's definitely an investment area, she said. People are
Speaker 1: talking about it and dealing with it a lot more
Speaker 1: than they ever were. Are You're listening to Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week watching us on YouTube, and this is Bloomberg Radio
Speaker 1: Carol Masterton Stanovich live at the Milk and Institute Global
Speaker 1: Conference in Beverly Hills here and on the West Coast.
Speaker 1: We've got a really great guest to wrap up our
Speaker 1: first day here. His company founded in eighteen and they
Speaker 1: are leveraging software, a software first approach, if you will,
Speaker 1: when it comes to how we manufacture things. We're talking
Speaker 1: about industrial automation. We're so delighted to have with us.
Speaker 1: Bright Machines CEO and co founder Amar haunts Ball. He's
Speaker 1: with us here at Milk and welcome to bloomberg Is
Speaker 1: this week. Thank you for having me, so tell us
Speaker 1: about what you're doing. I'm fascinating because increasingly we know
Speaker 1: so much in our world has been automated. You're taking
Speaker 1: it to another level. Yeah. We What we do is
Speaker 1: we build autonomous assembly lines. So you think of autonomous cars,
Speaker 1: you can imagine them, you know, kind of driving themselves.
Speaker 1: So we're doing kind of the same idea but applying
Speaker 1: it to building products. So we call ourselves bright Machines
Speaker 1: because we're giving eyes and brains to machines and using
Speaker 1: that intelligence, if you will, to create these, uh, what
Speaker 1: used to be labor centric assembly lines and replacing them
Speaker 1: with entirely machine powered, software powered ways of assembling products. MA,
Speaker 1: if you look at any product, the ones that are
Speaker 1: surrounding us right now, it's kind of like if you
Speaker 1: imagine the imagine all the piece parts of these products.
Speaker 1: They're made by machines, but they're assembled by humans. And
Speaker 1: we're changing that so that they're even assembled by humans
Speaker 1: assembled by machines, so the entire process is automated. What
Speaker 1: are some examples of processes that you've been able to
Speaker 1: automate that until you showed up at bright machines or
Speaker 1: created bright machines, were processes that companies require people for.
Speaker 1: I would say assembly in particular. So you think of
Speaker 1: the look at the products surrounding us. So you think
Speaker 1: think of the network infrastructure that's connecting our computers to
Speaker 1: the internet. You think of the the the electric vehicles,
Speaker 1: all the components that go in them, all those pieces.
Speaker 1: So let's take a piece of network infrastructure. You look
Speaker 1: at a modern day router um Assembling that router used
Speaker 1: to be done by hand in a place like China
Speaker 1: or Mexico. That's the thing that we have replaced using
Speaker 1: our autonomous assembly lines or robots and other machines are
Speaker 1: basically putting all the pieces in place and building network boxes.
Speaker 1: And we're doing that. I think that's what was kind
Speaker 1: of surprising, kind of reading in for this, so that
Speaker 1: I think I had thought so much was already automated.
Speaker 1: Give us you are snaps out of what you see.
Speaker 1: I mean, the reality is less than eight percent of
Speaker 1: the assembly lines in the world are automated. And you
Speaker 1: see all you know, robots moving around for forty years,
Speaker 1: but the reality has been that to set up these
Speaker 1: systems takes so much time and cost so much and
Speaker 1: requires the level of expertise that only you know, the
Speaker 1: big automotive or the big aerospace companies that have lots
Speaker 1: of money and a five year product cycles have been
Speaker 1: able to automate. You look at the you know, any
Speaker 1: kitchen appliance in your house that's not automated because it
Speaker 1: takes too long to configure or cost too much. I say,
Speaker 1: bullet that I used to make my shape a good example.
Speaker 1: Really it's not automated. It's again the like you look
Speaker 1: at that bullet. Pieces of the steel and the plastic
Speaker 1: are made by machines, but they're all assembled by hand.
Speaker 1: And that's the kind of thing that when you you know,
Speaker 1: and and you bring it, you bring technology like arts
Speaker 1: to bear, you can you know, assemble that using a
Speaker 1: modern When ultimately we reached the point where humans are
Speaker 1: replaced on automation, you knew we were going to there,
Speaker 1: then it creates a massive it's a transformational shift when
Speaker 1: it comes to labor market. It's something we talked about
Speaker 1: earlier with David hunted Piga. Right, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the type of thing that that can actually prevent inflation
Speaker 1: from getting out of control exactly. But yeah, when does
Speaker 1: that happen? And what is what is the massive shifts?
Speaker 1: So let me give you three parts of the ends.
Speaker 1: First of all, this kind of high level of automation
Speaker 1: has happened in other industries, and bank banks are a
Speaker 1: great example. When a t m S came, it didn't
Speaker 1: result in like unemployment for all the people that you know,
Speaker 1: you automated the most repetitive and kind of mind taxing
Speaker 1: um work. And that's what's happening in manufacturing. If you
Speaker 1: think about people, and this is it's not meant to
Speaker 1: be dystopian, but when you go into factories today, there
Speaker 1: are robots everywhere, but the robots are humans, and you'd
Speaker 1: see humans in factories doing the same operation a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand times literally in a screws you know, for screws
Speaker 1: into a box and screw like that is my numbing work, right,
Speaker 1: And so that's the kind of thing that the systems
Speaker 1: like us replaces. But you're right, when we do that,
Speaker 1: there is somebody that's affected. But what we've seen our
Speaker 1: customers do is that this they look at automation as
Speaker 1: an augmentation exercise that they're increasing the ability of a
Speaker 1: single person to do multiple, you know, more work, or
Speaker 1: have them do more valuable work like better customer service,
Speaker 1: to better engineering, do better design. And that's what I
Speaker 1: think will happen. It will take definitely you go through
Speaker 1: a curve where people need to be retrained. But on
Speaker 1: the other side of it, it's a much better experience
Speaker 1: for everybody. But it's safe to say that they're going
Speaker 1: to be people who are doing that repetitive work today
Speaker 1: that we won't need those jobs in the future, right
Speaker 1: And in fact, I would say one of the things
Speaker 1: that you see today is there are unfilled manufacturing jobs
Speaker 1: around the world for that very reason. Some people don't
Speaker 1: want those jobs. In the United States, there's four manufacturing
Speaker 1: jobs that are open that are unfilled because it's actually
Speaker 1: hard to find either they require a very high level
Speaker 1: of skill or the kind of skill they requires, So
Speaker 1: basically people don't want those you're hearing in the background,
Speaker 1: those people who don't want those jobs, they're getting ready
Speaker 1: for another event here. No, but it is interesting, So
Speaker 1: it's to me, it's it makes such sense, like why
Speaker 1: wouldn't everybody just automate everything? Why aren't people Is it expensive? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I would say up until now, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it's been daunting to to automate, and it's always
Speaker 1: been a from an expense perspective, from a time perspective,
Speaker 1: and that you know, when companies like Artists shows up
Speaker 1: and changes the economics of automation, I think people get
Speaker 1: more ready. The other thing that has happened is there
Speaker 1: has been a perfect storm in the last two years
Speaker 1: between the pandemic, between tariff wars and then a little
Speaker 1: bit of security concerns that have really accelerated people's interest
Speaker 1: in automation. How do you future proof these assembly lines?
Speaker 1: If the customer makes a big purchase, it's a good
Speaker 1: point that automates it. How do they know two years
Speaker 1: from now it's gonna be so good? So glad you
Speaker 1: asked that questions. Software is a secret sauce because what
Speaker 1: we do through software is make our lines programmable so effectively.
Speaker 1: Since our our secret sources, we use software to configure
Speaker 1: and run these machines. That software can be used to
Speaker 1: modify the same line to build a different product. So
Speaker 1: it's so we can upgrade. The software doesn't impact the hardware.
Speaker 1: The existing hardware if you completely change the product, let's
Speaker 1: say you're building your bullet and now you're going to
Speaker 1: build a network rowder. Yes, you need to change the
Speaker 1: end of armed grippers and some of the feeding systems.
Speaker 1: But if you're you know, you're upgrading the bullet or
Speaker 1: you're doing a second model of that, then you don't
Speaker 1: need to do this. So you're gonna go public this year.
Speaker 1: That is the plan. We announced ours transaction, yeah and
Speaker 1: uh seventeenth of May or a SPAC merger, and we're
Speaker 1: in the process of these packing. We filed our s
Speaker 1: for today and you know, when the SEC gives us
Speaker 1: to go ahead, then we shall be a public company.
Speaker 1: Come back and talk to us. Well, we would love
Speaker 1: to continue this conversation. Lamar, thank you, my pleasure. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having Lamar Puntsball. He is Bright Machines CEO and
Speaker 1: co founder with us here at Milkine. We did it.
Speaker 1: One day down, one day, two more to go, two
Speaker 1: more to go. We've got I'm going to talk with
Speaker 1: Kathy Wood. We're going to hear a lot more conversations.
Speaker 1: They're all coming out. Have a good night, everybody,