Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is alive
Speaker 1: from coast to coast with Caroline Hide in New York
Speaker 1: and v Love in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 3: I'm Matt Miller in New York filling in for Carolin
Speaker 3: and Ed Whu are on assignment today. Coming up in
Speaker 3: Nvidia invests two billion dollars in Marvel to collaborate on
Speaker 3: silicon photonics technology. We had the details of that deal,
Speaker 3: plus the debt binge fueling. The AI boom continues with
Speaker 3: core Weave raising eight and a half billion dollars more
Speaker 3: from banks and investors to expand its neo cloud capacity,
Speaker 3: and wearable health tech company Whoop gets a ten point
Speaker 3: one billion dollar valuation after its latest raise. We'll sit
Speaker 3: down with the CEO, but first take it look at
Speaker 3: what's going on in markets, because we have a rally
Speaker 3: on our hands today, the S and P five hundred
Speaker 3: gaining one and a half percent, the NASDAK gaining one
Speaker 3: and a quarter percent. Right now, it is worth pointing
Speaker 3: out that even adding two hundred and ninety points only
Speaker 3: brings us back to twenty three two hundred and forty
Speaker 3: five so we're rising up but still do a relatively
Speaker 3: low level, and Brent crude trading at over one hundred
Speaker 3: and seven dollars a barrel right now one oh seven
Speaker 3: seventy one. Nimex is trading at one hundred and three
Speaker 3: dollars a barrew, so even WTI well over that one
Speaker 3: hundred dollars level, as the President tells aids at least
Speaker 3: according to the Wall Street Journal, that he is thinking
Speaker 3: about leaving Iran without.
Speaker 2: Reopening the Strait of horror moves.
Speaker 3: Let's bring in Bloomberg Balance of power cost Kaylee Limes
Speaker 3: for the latest on the war in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: Kaylee, what do we know?
Speaker 4: Well, Matt, it does seem to be a narrative that
Speaker 4: is changing each and every day. At this time yesterday,
Speaker 4: we were talking about President Trump who was openly threatening
Speaker 4: publicly on true social to potentially attack a running an
Speaker 4: energy infrastructure, even water infrastructurally desalination plans. If Iron did
Speaker 4: not reach a deal with the United States to reopen
Speaker 4: the straight of wour moves, then you have fresh reporting
Speaker 4: in the Wall Street Journal that he is privately told
Speaker 4: aids around him, according to people familiar with the matter,
Speaker 4: that he would be willing to wrap up the primary
Speaker 4: military and naval operations right now, like destroying the Iranian
Speaker 4: navy and other military targets, without actually securing the reopening
Speaker 4: of the strait, leaving that either to diplomacy or potentially
Speaker 4: for other countries to step in to try to secure.
Speaker 4: And that would be in keeping with what we're hearing
Speaker 4: from the President on True Social this morning, specifically when
Speaker 4: it pertains to jet fuel, he talks about other countries,
Speaker 4: including the United Kingdom, who need jet fuel and aren't
Speaker 4: getting it right now out of the Middle East, that
Speaker 4: he would suggest either number one, you buy that from
Speaker 4: the United States, he argues that we have plenty of
Speaker 4: jet fuel, or you go into the strait yourself to
Speaker 4: try to secure it. He actually said, and this is
Speaker 4: a quote, go get your own oil. So it does
Speaker 4: seem to be building on this narrative of the President
Speaker 4: which we have been hearing for weeks now, pushing other
Speaker 4: countries to step in more acutely in the Middle East,
Speaker 4: either to secure the straight Mews or otherwise support US
Speaker 4: operations that do still remain ongoing. When it comes to Iran,
Speaker 4: of course, we've had thousands of more American military personnel
Speaker 4: service members arriving in the theater. Over just the last
Speaker 4: several days, we heard once again from the Defense Secretary
Speaker 4: Pete Hegsep and the Joint chiefs of Staff Chare dan
Speaker 4: Kine about ongoing military operations. Some eleven thousand targets still struck,
Speaker 4: and Pete Hegseth did echo the President and saying more
Speaker 4: could be targeted if indeed no deal.
Speaker 3: Is reach Matt all right, Keyley, thanks very much, look
Speaker 3: forward to your program. Keaylle lines co Anker's Balance of
Speaker 3: Power at one o'clock on Bloomberg Television. Let's turn now
Speaker 3: to the big news in chip makers today, within Vidia
Speaker 3: announcing a two billion dollar investment in Marvel Technology. It's
Speaker 3: part of a strategic partnership that will connect Marvel within
Speaker 3: Vidia's AI ecosystem, essentially opening up the tent to bring
Speaker 3: in more players. Let's get to Bloomberg's Global Executive Tech
Speaker 3: editor Peter Elstrom.
Speaker 2: So, Peter, what do we know about this deal? H?
Speaker 5: So, we've seen Nvidia cut a number of these deals
Speaker 5: in the past where they're going out and they're working
Speaker 5: with other technology companies to try to speed up and
Speaker 5: improve the AI infrastructure. That they're building out around the world.
Speaker 5: They're of course selling their chips to the AI developers,
Speaker 5: and in this case they're partnering with Marvell, investing two
Speaker 5: billion dollars, as you say, not a small amount to
Speaker 5: be able to get more access to their technology, especially
Speaker 5: the photonics technology that they need to be able to
Speaker 5: connect chips. And Vidia course has the best AI accelerators
Speaker 5: on the market, but increasingly they want to be able
Speaker 5: to connect those chips so it's not just one GPU,
Speaker 5: but dozens of them or even scores of them, hundreds
Speaker 5: of them to be able to work together to power
Speaker 5: these data centers more efficiently. Marvell has excellent technology for
Speaker 5: that kind of networking. They want to be able to
Speaker 5: use the photonics technology that they've been accumulating and developing
Speaker 5: over the years to speed up that process and also
Speaker 5: to make it more energy efficient. As we've seen, data
Speaker 5: centers consume a tremendous amount of power, and if you
Speaker 5: can reduce that requirement even a little bit, you're going
Speaker 5: to save yourself some money and some costs.
Speaker 2: In terms of in Vidia's power.
Speaker 3: We really saw it put to work with a property
Speaker 3: developer that got what three point eight billion dollars in funding,
Speaker 3: even though nobody has really worked.
Speaker 2: With them before. What's the story there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is a fascinating deal, and you see the
Speaker 5: creative financing that is popping up around a lot of
Speaker 5: these AI development infrastructures. You're talking about Track Capital. It
Speaker 5: was started by an entrepreneur, Grant Van Ruyan, who's done
Speaker 5: data centers before. Certainly they've done them, but in this
Speaker 5: particular case, you're exactly right.
Speaker 2: They Tracked has a deal.
Speaker 5: Within Nvidia where they promise they're going to buy data
Speaker 5: center capacity in the future. There's no revenue from this
Speaker 5: company at this point, but Track has set this up
Speaker 5: as a subsidiary, so it's not guaranteeing the three point
Speaker 5: eight billion dollars in debt that you're referring to, but
Speaker 5: it's truly a bet that they're going to be able
Speaker 5: to construct a data center, get power connected to that
Speaker 5: data center, and begin to sell AI services in the future.
Speaker 2: We'll see if it works, but there's.
Speaker 5: A lot of this kind of speculative financing going on
Speaker 5: to try to support what's a very fast build out
Speaker 5: of these data centers. So it'll be a fascinating deal
Speaker 5: to watch.
Speaker 3: You just having Nvidia on your client list, the name
Speaker 3: there is enough to get you pretty good credit.
Speaker 2: Peter Elstrom, thanks very much for that.
Speaker 3: Let's talk talk about one of the other chip makers
Speaker 3: that we're watching today, and that is super Micro, the
Speaker 3: company facing growing investor concern after a string of self
Speaker 3: inflicted setbacks. Most recently, its co founder was indicted on
Speaker 3: charges of circumventing US export restrictions to China. For more
Speaker 3: on the stock, Bloomberg Tech equities reporter Ryan Vlastelica joins
Speaker 3: us and Ryan, it just looks like investors are leaving
Speaker 3: this company again in droves.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, thank you for having me so absolutely. Having the
Speaker 7: indictment of the co founder, that's obviously a pretty big
Speaker 7: hurdle for any kind of investor. But this comes after
Speaker 7: some other major red flags at the company, notably some
Speaker 7: accounting issues over a couple of years. This has something
Speaker 7: that people are extremely cautious about, even though the company
Speaker 7: is very well positioned in what is seen as a
Speaker 7: major growth market, which is AI servers. So we've seen
Speaker 7: the stock really fall participacy over the past couple of
Speaker 7: years as people sort of assess what does this company's
Speaker 7: risk profile look like? What kind of governance issues are
Speaker 7: coming into play here. All of that at the moment
Speaker 7: is really overshadowing a more positive fundamental growth story in
Speaker 7: terms of the market it's operating in.
Speaker 3: In terms of it's not a chip maker, obviously super micro.
Speaker 3: What is the main product for this? Is it server racks? Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: so AI servers. Another company, Dell is also involved here
Speaker 3: HeLa packard enterprise. Not many companies operate in this, but
Speaker 3: it is a key part of AI related infrastructure, which
Speaker 3: is why the company for a really long time was
Speaker 3: doing quite well. It was seeing pretty dramatic growth. It
Speaker 3: is one of Nvidia's major customers, and we saw the
Speaker 3: stock sort of react to that. I think at one
Speaker 3: point it was the biggest ever component of a small
Speaker 3: cap index before it was finally moved to the SMP
Speaker 3: five hundred, just as a reflection of how quickly the
Speaker 3: company was growing and how much the stop was rising.
Speaker 3: Now all of this is really coming under question right now.
Speaker 3: So while there's still a lot of optimism about the
Speaker 3: long term story of AI infrastructure, here you have a
Speaker 3: company that has a lot of really unique challenges and
Speaker 3: risks associated with it, especially relative to more familiar companies
Speaker 3: like Dell or Hpe.
Speaker 2: All right, Ryan, great to get your coverage.
Speaker 3: Ryan blast Elica covers tech companies for US out of
Speaker 3: the middle of America. Coming up, Core Weave shares are
Speaker 3: rising this morning as the Neo Cloud company raises an
Speaker 3: eight and a half billion dollar loan to help fuel
Speaker 3: its complete build out. We'll have details on the Neo
Speaker 3: cloud operator. Next, this is Bloomberg Tech. Just take a
Speaker 3: look at Snap. Why don't we Shares are jumping on
Speaker 3: the news that activists investor Capital Management has built a
Speaker 3: position in the company, Sources saying Ernick is pushing for
Speaker 3: changes to improve financial and operating performance. Bloomberg's Leanna Baker
Speaker 3: joins us now. She runs the deals team for us
Speaker 3: here at Bloomberg. So what do we know about this
Speaker 3: investor and what it wants out of Snap?
Speaker 8: Sure, so we've seen a Rennick before. They're an up
Speaker 8: and coming activist. They've gone after companies like News Corp
Speaker 8: Before owned by the Murdoch, so they're no stranger to companies.
Speaker 2: That are controlled.
Speaker 8: But here they're looking at sort of shaking up things
Speaker 8: at Snap. You know, the stock is down fifty percent
Speaker 8: year over year. They're asking for a lot of changes
Speaker 8: from you know, a stock buy back, to more adoption
Speaker 8: of AI, to big layoffs and just other things that
Speaker 8: Snap should do to sort of get back on track
Speaker 8: since going public in twenty seventeen. Its products are wildly successful,
Speaker 8: but it hasn't really found its footing as a public company.
Speaker 8: Just the share story doesn't tell that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, I'm looking at this is a
Speaker 3: company that's only worth seven zero point four billion dollars
Speaker 3: right up against a Meta which is worth one point
Speaker 3: four trillion. And you cite the year over year performance,
Speaker 3: but over five years, Snap shares are down ninety one percent.
Speaker 3: I mean, they've lost essentially all of their value.
Speaker 8: It's sunning, And here comes an activist investor saying, look,
Speaker 8: we believe in the business, but here are some changes
Speaker 8: that we think that Snap can make to sort of
Speaker 8: have its second act. They're looking for a comeback here,
Speaker 8: and they believe that, you know, with the right moves,
Speaker 8: maybe shutting down the SPECS wearable business, that's one thing
Speaker 8: they're calling for that you know, Snap could turn itself around.
Speaker 2: That business is still operating.
Speaker 8: So the company had announced earlier this year they're separating
Speaker 8: it into a stand zone entity, but we're waiting for
Speaker 8: the glasses to come out later this year.
Speaker 3: All right, tough to go up against Meta with that
Speaker 3: business as well. Thank you so much, Leanna Baker on that.
Speaker 3: Let's get to the neo cloud story now, because core
Speaker 3: Weave has raised another eight and a half billion dollars
Speaker 3: who expand its cloud capacity as the debt bingch the
Speaker 3: AI boom continues. Shares a core Weave climbing on the news.
Speaker 3: The loan is backed by a combination of semiconductors and
Speaker 3: a customer contract to use those chips. Bloomberg reported last
Speaker 3: month that the deal was with Meta. Let's get more
Speaker 3: details with our markets reporter Bailey Lipshultz. So, Bailey, what
Speaker 3: do we know about this stock? And it's incredible, incredible
Speaker 3: borrowing performance.
Speaker 9: Yeah, man, this is probably the most debated stock on
Speaker 9: Wall Street, maybe behind Tesla, and when you look at
Speaker 9: kind of that debt binch, they have been clearly tapping
Speaker 9: every avenue or venue that they can, and they really
Speaker 9: according to the company, this is the largest chip backed
Speaker 9: product in terms of borrowing. So when you put this
Speaker 9: into an SPV, you're using again to your point, about
Speaker 9: eight and a half billion dollars of borrowing power that
Speaker 9: is going to go into funding and building out the operations,
Speaker 9: as you mentioned, backed by that Meta contract. So this
Speaker 9: is a company that if you talk to the bulls,
Speaker 9: they're being very novel with different ways to fund these
Speaker 9: build outs and fund these operations. If you talk to
Speaker 9: some of the skeptics, this is just another move to
Speaker 9: borrow money and use the name of Meta to help
Speaker 9: back that up.
Speaker 3: So I look at, you know, again the market cap here.
Speaker 3: It's a forty billion dollar company, but they have twenty
Speaker 3: three billion dollars in debt on the DDIS page, and
Speaker 3: I assume that's not including something like this because as
Speaker 3: you said, it's an SPV.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's structures are interesting, and when you talk to investors,
Speaker 9: if you're talking to private debt buyers, they love this because, okay,
Speaker 9: you're actually backing an individual product that is investment greade
Speaker 9: according to Moody's that is backed by a contract with Meta.
Speaker 9: If you talk to equity investors on the public side,
Speaker 9: to your point, it's a bit more of a complex picture.
Speaker 9: And that's why we've seen elevated short interest. We've seen
Speaker 9: wild swillings with the stock going back to when it
Speaker 9: went public last year during call it the tariff issues.
Speaker 9: And really, when you look at kind of the under
Speaker 9: the surface performance of this company, it is betting that
Speaker 9: they are going to dominate the space of acquiring in
Speaker 9: video chips, building out those data centers, and helping Lease
Speaker 9: compute to hyperscalers. It's a bold strategy that so far, again,
Speaker 9: we're really only in the early innings of that story place.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a stock that has doubled in
Speaker 3: the past twelve months, Bailey, and almost all of that
Speaker 3: came in the first couple of months after Liberation Day.
Speaker 3: Since then the stock has been on a steady decline.
Speaker 3: So the chart doesn't look as impressive as it sounds. No,
Speaker 3: not as impressive as it sounds.
Speaker 9: And if you compare its one year performance to its
Speaker 9: main publicly traded peer, and that's an Ebbus, it's actually
Speaker 9: underperforming the other neocloud rival. Again, this is a story
Speaker 9: that from an investing standpoint, has so many different parties participating.
Speaker 9: So yes, you look at the stock performance, again, that's
Speaker 9: only the public equity side of this story. So even
Speaker 9: when you talk to, as I do, investors who operate
Speaker 9: in both the private and public space, it's a bit
Speaker 9: more of a complex and again debated story from a
Speaker 9: public equity perspective, but we continue to see the company
Speaker 9: finding willing investors to help back its credit and willing
Speaker 9: consumers in the likes of a Meta to sign some
Speaker 9: of these contracts because there are trillions of dollars at risk.
Speaker 3: Coor we've shares up ninety eight point five percent in
Speaker 3: the past twelve months nebius of three hundred and sixty percent.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's Bailey Lipschultz covers the markets for US coming up
Speaker 3: autonomous boat startup Saronic raises one point seventy five billion
Speaker 3: dollars as the wave of funding into defense tech continues.
Speaker 2: More on that Next, this is Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 10: A lot of our peers just don't focus on this
Speaker 10: area because it is too complicated and so and those
Speaker 10: that we do compete against tend to be more mid
Speaker 10: market firms, which as a global private equity firm, with
Speaker 10: our global footprint, with the resources we have, it's easier
Speaker 10: for us to differentiate when we're looking at court a
Speaker 10: founder of a business that he should partner with us.
Speaker 3: That was Ian Fujiyama, head of Aerospace, Defense and Government
Speaker 3: Services at Carlisle on navigating regulatory landscape. Sources tell Bloomberg
Speaker 3: Carlisle is reaching out to investors about a potential defense
Speaker 3: focus fund. To carl representative declined to comment, but we
Speaker 3: want to get more on this report with Bloomberg's private
Speaker 3: equity reporter Alis McNeely. She joins me here on set
Speaker 3: in Studio one at seven thirty one.
Speaker 2: Lex Alison, Great to have you on the program.
Speaker 3: This is really about more than defense, right, It's about,
Speaker 3: at least what we think we know, Carlisle investing in
Speaker 3: kind of rebuilding the industrial base exactly.
Speaker 11: It's sort of being pitched as a defense and a
Speaker 11: reindustrial is a re industrialization fund, and that actually has
Speaker 11: a lot of connectivity with defense in general.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 11: We've seen the US Army they have this big push
Speaker 11: for one hundred and fifty billion dollars in capital to
Speaker 11: invest in infrastructure. We saw that they entered into exclusivity
Speaker 11: to negotiate with cake Care and Carlisle and Data Centers
Speaker 11: last week. So this has really been an emerging theme
Speaker 11: of private capital kind of coalescing around defense and industrializing.
Speaker 2: Private capital getting into it big.
Speaker 3: But Carlisle specifically has deep roots in defense. What's different
Speaker 3: about this go round?
Speaker 11: What is different about this go around is we sort
Speaker 11: of in the past, defense, as I understand, it has
Speaker 11: been somewhat boom and bust or wax and wag, and
Speaker 11: you know, depending on really who's in the government and
Speaker 11: what kind of push there is to invest in defense.
Speaker 11: But given sort of the changing environment that we saw
Speaker 11: really starting with Ukraine a few years ago and now
Speaker 11: kind of what is happening here, there's a realization among
Speaker 11: governments around the world that they need to invest in
Speaker 11: their defense, invest in their military, and do technological upgrades
Speaker 11: as well as sort of again that infrastructure upgrade.
Speaker 3: All right, it makes a lot of sense. Looking forward
Speaker 3: to more reporting on this story. Alison McNeely, thanks for
Speaker 3: joining us. Let's stick with the defense or reindustrialization theme,
Speaker 3: because Saronic is making military drone boats. It's closed to
Speaker 3: one and three quarter billion dollars Series D round, valuing
Speaker 3: the company at nine and a quarter billion dollars, and
Speaker 3: we have the CEA for you. Dino Mavrucus joins us
Speaker 3: and do you know, you know for you also this
Speaker 3: must be good news the Carlisle story, right, Obviously, your
Speaker 3: funding round is very has been very successful.
Speaker 2: What are you going to deploy that capital to do?
Speaker 2: How will you rebuild the industrial base?
Speaker 12: Hi, Matt, and thanks for having me on the show.
Speaker 12: This is very exciting news for Saronic and as you mentioned,
Speaker 12: very exciting news for the industrial base. Before I jump
Speaker 12: into what's next for Saronic and what we're going to
Speaker 12: be doing, it's important to acknowledge that this fundraising really
Speaker 12: came off the back of is a byproduct of the
Speaker 12: execution of our team over the last twelve months. Like
Speaker 12: just twelve months ago, we raised a six hundred million
Speaker 12: dollar financing round on a four billion dollar valuation that
Speaker 12: let us open our first shipyard, launch Marauder, which is
Speaker 12: one hundred and eighty foot autonomous ship, start a three
Speaker 12: hundred million dollar infrastructure project into scaling product capacity at
Speaker 12: that shipyard, and also scale the production of our small
Speaker 12: USV products of Coursera, what you see right behind me
Speaker 12: well into the thousands. Now, as we look forward, what
Speaker 12: are we going to do with this new capital. We're
Speaker 12: going to continue to accelerate the production and the delivery
Speaker 12: of our vessels to the US and.
Speaker 2: Allies around the world.
Speaker 12: We're going to launch new products, new ships, and We're
Speaker 12: going to continue that investment into the shipbuilding industrial base,
Speaker 12: invest billions of dollars, create thousands of jobs in the process,
Speaker 12: and unlock production rates in shipbuilding that we haven't seen
Speaker 12: in this country since World War Two, and do it
Speaker 12: in a very software first, technological first approach.
Speaker 3: And it's also I mean, I wasn't aware until we
Speaker 3: started reporting on the potential to lift the Jones Act
Speaker 3: what a.
Speaker 2: Bad state US shipbuilding is in.
Speaker 3: I mean, we only have like six or seven Navy
Speaker 3: shipyard and most of them are here on the East Coast,
Speaker 3: I think one in California. How are you playing a
Speaker 3: role in bringing back US shipbuilding, Dino.
Speaker 2: You're exactly right.
Speaker 12: The shipbuilding industry is in crisis right now, and you're
Speaker 12: seeing this as a priority of the administration. I mean,
Speaker 12: the White House just put out a Maritime Action Plan
Speaker 12: to rebuild the maritime industrial base, and that's exactly what
Speaker 12: Saronic is investing in. When you look at the shipbuilding
Speaker 12: capacity in this country right now, from a commercial perspective,
Speaker 12: the United States has zero point one percent of global
Speaker 12: shipbuilding capacity. The Chinese can outbuild the United States two
Speaker 12: hundred and thirty to one, and then on the military
Speaker 12: and defense side. You know, traditional naval destroyers, for example,
Speaker 12: costs billions of dollars, but also say it take six
Speaker 12: to eight years to produce one of them.
Speaker 2: So how we're looking.
Speaker 12: At deploying our on man system them is really around scale.
Speaker 12: How do we adopt very very fast, in really large
Speaker 12: quantities at a fraction of the price point that traditional
Speaker 12: man platforms are able to be delivered to the military today.
Speaker 2: One of the biggest benefits of these drone boats.
Speaker 3: I mean, I look at this administration seemingly begging our
Speaker 3: allies to come help out in the straight of hoour
Speaker 3: moos with mind sweepers because we have only some wooden
Speaker 3: hulled boats out there, right and obviously with the crew
Speaker 3: that you don't want to risk with such a dangerous task.
Speaker 2: Is this where you can play a critical role?
Speaker 12: That's exactly right. I mean, when you look at what's
Speaker 12: happening in the straits of Four Moves and candidly other
Speaker 12: maritime environments around the world, what you're seeing are increasingly
Speaker 12: contested and increasingly complex environments. What unmanned systems really bring
Speaker 12: to the table is scale, persistence and risk reduction. And
Speaker 12: what I mean by that is, you can really deploy
Speaker 12: high numbers of these platforms, again at a fraction of
Speaker 12: the price point of traditional manned platforms. You can operate
Speaker 12: them continuously in these dangerous environments while keeping sailors out
Speaker 12: of harm's way. That really give naval commanders optionality to
Speaker 12: combat some of these threats that they're seeing that aren't
Speaker 12: countered very easily with manned platforms alone.
Speaker 2: What is you know?
Speaker 3: You know, we hear so much about the defense industrial
Speaker 3: base and how we're not building enough here, We're not
Speaker 3: building fast enough here or efficiently enough. What is the
Speaker 3: main bottleneck to producing at scale for you?
Speaker 12: For us, we really rethink the problem from the ground up.
Speaker 12: It's really how do you redesign the ship so that
Speaker 12: it's designed for manufacturability. We've taken a vertically integrated approach
Speaker 12: so that we can ensure that we get to this
Speaker 12: scale that this country needs. And again that all starts
Speaker 12: with the design. Once you have the design in place,
Speaker 12: than the workforce, the training, everything else needed to build
Speaker 12: out the capacity, and then the software and the autonomy
Speaker 12: that's required to power these vessels at the scale that
Speaker 12: we're building them out. This is true maritime autonomy. That
Speaker 12: is vertically integrated and delivered as a cohesive capability to
Speaker 12: the end user. That's what's required, that's what's needed. That's
Speaker 12: what we're building at Seronic.
Speaker 3: All right, Diano, great to get you on the program.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: Dino Mavrucas, they're the CEO of Seronic. Coming up, we're
Speaker 3: going to speak with will Ahmed, the CEO of Whoop
Speaker 3: as its valuation hits more than ten billion dollars after
Speaker 3: its latest funding round.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 3: I'm Matt Miller in for Caroline and Ed here in
Speaker 3: New York City. The war in Iran is felt across Asia,
Speaker 3: maybe even more so than here. Chip stocks there are
Speaker 3: tumbling as investors pull back from the market's biggest winners
Speaker 3: IMD geopolitical tensions. You can see sk Heinex and Samsung
Speaker 3: down eight and six percent, respectively. Meanwhile, sand Disk here
Speaker 3: in the US is up more than five percent in
Speaker 3: today's cash session. Memory stocks have been especially volatile, of course,
Speaker 3: as they are fueled by surging product prices and high demand,
Speaker 3: but Asia is especially susceptible to the closure of the
Speaker 3: Street of horror moves let's switch gears though and talk
Speaker 3: about completely and talk about wearable health tech company Whoop.
Speaker 3: It's announced it raised five hundred and seventy five million
Speaker 3: dollars in a series G funding that values of the
Speaker 3: company at more than ten billion in total. And here
Speaker 3: to discuss the latest round is Will Ahmed, the CEO
Speaker 3: of Whoop. Will great to have you so on. I'm
Speaker 3: a longtime Whoop wearer. I'm on a three hundred ninety
Speaker 3: day streak right now, and it's nice to see your
Speaker 3: valuation up to more than ten billion. That's around the
Speaker 3: same I noticed as Aura, And so I'm wondering what
Speaker 3: you think about what must be your biggest competitor. I mean,
Speaker 3: is there room in this space for two powerful companies
Speaker 3: or is this, you know, a winner take all scenario.
Speaker 13: Well, thanks for having me on, Matt, and thanks for
Speaker 13: being a longtime Whoop member. I appreciate that. You know,
Speaker 13: if I actually just look back over the last decade,
Speaker 13: because I founded Whoop in twenty twelve, so I've been
Speaker 13: building this company for fourteen years, There's been an enormous
Speaker 13: number of players in the space over the years. In
Speaker 13: the early days, you had, you know, big wearable or
Speaker 13: big sports apparel brands. Excuse me, So you had the
Speaker 13: Nike under Armor, Adidas, Puma Crowd. You then had entries
Speaker 13: from the tech market, so you had Microsoft and Google
Speaker 13: and Intel and Amazon Meta and so there's been a
Speaker 13: lot of players, I would say broadly in the wearable space. Today,
Speaker 13: there's actually maybe the fewest number of players that I've
Speaker 13: seen in the last five years, and yet the wearables
Speaker 13: market has grown enormously. You know, when I first started
Speaker 13: the company, I think less than five million wearables were
Speaker 13: sold a year. Now that figure is three hundred to
Speaker 13: four hundred million devices a year and continues to grow.
Speaker 13: So we're very excited about where the company's positioned, and
Speaker 13: we think we're still in the early days despite the
Speaker 13: maturity of the business.
Speaker 3: So, you know, I'm obviously a customer, and so many
Speaker 3: people here around me are customers?
Speaker 2: Do they stay? Do we stay? Are you? Are you
Speaker 2: retaining customers?
Speaker 3: Those that have twelve month subscriptions, are they going to
Speaker 3: twenty four?
Speaker 2: Are they renewing?
Speaker 13: Well, we recently actually launched three membership tiers. So it
Speaker 13: used to be sign up for two hundred and forty
Speaker 13: dollars a year. Now there's a lower plan and a
Speaker 13: higher plan three hundred and sixty dollars a year for
Speaker 13: Whoop Life, and we've actually seen an overwhelming number of
Speaker 13: people migrate from our middle tier to our highest tier,
Speaker 13: and that demonstrates I think that our members are willing
Speaker 13: to pay for enhanced features, premium capabilities, an additional medical
Speaker 13: sensing portfolio that we've rolled out, so now Woop has
Speaker 13: ECG monitoring with aphib detection. We've come out with blood
Speaker 13: pressure insights, which were the first wearable to do. We
Speaker 13: recently launched Advanced Labs, which is blood testing. So overwhelming
Speaker 13: we see our members wanting to invest more in their
Speaker 13: health with Whoop, They're buying additional services, they're moving up
Speaker 13: in their membership tier. And then in addition to that,
Speaker 13: we have some of the best user engagement in all
Speaker 13: of health. Our members are opening the Woop app eight
Speaker 13: times a day, which is pretty extraordinary user engagement. We
Speaker 13: have an eighty three percent down mau ratio, which I
Speaker 13: believe is second only to WhatsApp in terms of how
Speaker 13: often people are using and engaging with the product. So
Speaker 13: it really speaks to I think the value that we've
Speaker 13: been able to create and the fact that our members
Speaker 13: are in fact improving their health.
Speaker 3: I think about all this stuff that you can do,
Speaker 3: and I see the labs myself as well, and the
Speaker 3: blood pressure monitoring you can not predict, but you know
Speaker 3: you can see whether you're in line for a stroker
Speaker 3: a heart attack.
Speaker 2: Is this a fitness company or is.
Speaker 3: It like a clinical diagnostics tool.
Speaker 13: Well, we want to build the most powerful personal health
Speaker 13: platform in the world, and we see that as an
Speaker 13: evolution from fitness and sports, which is our origins, to
Speaker 13: now working very broadly across health and medical capabilities. You know,
Speaker 13: two of our investors in this latest financing were Mayo
Speaker 13: Clinic and Abbot. Mayo Clinic of course being one of
Speaker 13: the best health institutions in the entire world, and we're
Speaker 13: going to be announcing a lot of research with the
Speaker 13: Mayo Clinic, an Abbot of course being one of the
Speaker 13: best medical device makers in the world, and we're going
Speaker 13: to be announcing more with them as well. And so
Speaker 13: I think this overall financing really shows the past and
Speaker 13: the history of WOOP with the athletes coming in Chris Hianno, Ronaldo,
Speaker 13: Ory McElroy now Lebron James, as well as.
Speaker 2: The future of Woop with me.
Speaker 13: Any of these health strategics, you.
Speaker 3: Need to get some squash players, You need to sponsor
Speaker 3: some squash players here.
Speaker 13: Well, we love squash. I've played squash my entire life.
Speaker 13: Ali Farrag, former World number one, is a good friend
Speaker 13: and a Whoop member, So we'll do more in squash.
Speaker 3: You are cash flow positive, I mean you're making money,
Speaker 3: So why raise this additional half a billion dollars plus now?
Speaker 13: Well, we want to accelerate a lot of the work
Speaker 13: that we're doing. We think the opportunity to own health
Speaker 13: monitoring and integrate deeply into the healthcare system is now
Speaker 13: just completely up for grabs and there's only a few
Speaker 13: players in the market, and we really want to attack
Speaker 13: the opportunity. So we're going to be leaning in on
Speaker 13: research and development. We've announced that we're hiring six hundred
Speaker 13: roles this year, really across every single function, so we're
Speaker 13: actually growing our headcount eighty percent, which seems to be
Speaker 13: a counter narrative move right now. And then we're also
Speaker 13: growing internationally, so we've brought in some really great strategic
Speaker 13: investors from around the world, sovereign wealth funds like QIA
Speaker 13: and two point zero and Mubadala and others, and we're
Speaker 13: gonna be investing heavily in growth around the world.
Speaker 2: How can you put AI to work?
Speaker 3: And I know you already have an AI assistant on
Speaker 3: your platform obviously I'm on there many times a day,
Speaker 3: But how much do you think it can be improved?
Speaker 13: Well, I think ultimately Whoop will either make you healthier
Speaker 13: or it will save your life. And those are really
Speaker 13: the two areas of development for WHOOP, and as we
Speaker 13: think about coaching and alerting, those are the two areas
Speaker 13: that we're investing in. And so we do believe that AI,
Speaker 13: sitting on top of all of this data is going
Speaker 13: to be able to deliver value in those categories. I
Speaker 13: think it's inevitable that a huge percentage of humanity will
Speaker 13: be continuously wearing a health monitor and it's going to
Speaker 13: make you healthier or it's going to save your life
Speaker 13: one day.
Speaker 2: Will you go public before that?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I read Series G right, We're
Speaker 3: getting pretty far along in the alphabet.
Speaker 2: When is the IPO plan.
Speaker 13: For Well, we still see it on a horizon of
Speaker 13: eighteen to twenty four months. You know, Fortunately, whoops operating
Speaker 13: cash flow positive. We've just added five hundred and seventy
Speaker 13: five million to our balance sheet. So we've got a
Speaker 13: very strong balance sheet and it allows us to be
Speaker 13: I think, really thoughtful and control our destiny and roots. IPO.
Speaker 3: All right, Will great having you on set. Thanks so
Speaker 3: much for joining us. Will I'm out there the CEO
Speaker 3: of Whoop coming up. NASA gets ready to send astronauts
Speaker 3: around to the Moon to eventually prepare for a trip
Speaker 3: to that big Rock. Will discuss the milestone for the
Speaker 3: space agency. Next, this is Bloomberg Tech. NASA is sending
Speaker 3: astronauts on a journey around the Moon for the first
Speaker 3: time in over fifty years. The lunar mission will test
Speaker 3: the Artemis two spacecraft, paving the way for an actual
Speaker 3: lunar landing in twenty eight. Bloomberg Originals takes a look.
Speaker 3: I think our generation appreciates having a program that now
Speaker 3: we get a chance to take our own moonshots, what
Speaker 3: we call great things that humans accomplish.
Speaker 14: NASA's Artemis program is the space agency's ambitious mission to
Speaker 14: send humans back to the Moon for the first time
Speaker 14: in more than half a century. The last time NASA
Speaker 14: sent humans to the Moon, they were locked in a
Speaker 14: space race with the Soviet Union. This time, NASA wants
Speaker 14: to go back to the Moon to stay in order
Speaker 14: to learn how to live sustainably off of the lunar surface.
Speaker 2: Four stage agents start.
Speaker 14: Prior to Artemis two, NASA launched the very first major
Speaker 14: mission in the Artemis program, called Artemis one, which sent
Speaker 14: the Orian Krue Capsule around the Moon to demonstrate that
Speaker 14: they could work without a crew on board. Now it's
Speaker 14: time to show that they can actually keep a crew
Speaker 14: alive while traveling to deep space.
Speaker 15: Our goal is get to the Moon and get back
Speaker 15: four days out, four days back. We are going to
Speaker 15: do as much science as we can on the way,
Speaker 15: and on the far side of the Moon, we're going
Speaker 15: to maybe forty five minutes where we're in a loss
Speaker 15: of calm with Earth, and all we can do is
Speaker 15: just train our eyes on that Moon's surface.
Speaker 14: The entire Artemist program has come under significant criticism for
Speaker 14: how much time it's taking to build and how much
Speaker 14: money it's costing the taxpayer. There is an estimate that
Speaker 14: between twenty twelve and twenty twenty five, the Artemis program
Speaker 14: has cost roughly ninety three billion dollars. Despite the criticism,
Speaker 14: it does benefit from strong congressional support. Many of the
Speaker 14: programs that are needed for Artemis are spread across the
Speaker 14: entire United States and provide a lot of jobs for constituents.
Speaker 14: While the Artemist two mission is coming up, Artemis three,
Speaker 14: Artemis four, Artemis five are all a bit of open
Speaker 14: question marks at the moment. There's development that needs to
Speaker 14: happen for hardware, notably with the landers that will actually
Speaker 14: take the humans to the surface.
Speaker 7: Of the Moon.
Speaker 14: NASA is pulling out all stops with its contractors to
Speaker 14: ensure that a landing occurs no later than twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 14: but it remains to be seen if that date will
Speaker 14: actually be possible.
Speaker 3: You can watch the full episode online or on the
Speaker 3: Bloomberg terminal. And whenever I'm wondering about space, I just
Speaker 3: watched this show because Ed Ludlow and Lauren Grush know
Speaker 3: more about going to space and anybody else. Let's talk
Speaker 3: right now, though, about what to expect from this historic
Speaker 3: mission tomorrow, what it means for America's broader space ambitions.
Speaker 2: For that, we're joined by esne Uzo Koro.
Speaker 3: She is a senior fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center,
Speaker 3: but also a former NASA executive and a former Assistant
Speaker 3: Director for Space Policy at the White House under the
Speaker 3: Biden administration. And isay, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Why do we have to go up there and fly around?
Speaker 3: I mean, we've already been to the Moon, we've already
Speaker 3: landed on it. Can't we just send another ship up
Speaker 3: there and go back.
Speaker 6: Well, we're a bit rusty when it's been fifty years
Speaker 6: since you've done something. You need to validate some tests
Speaker 6: and test some life support systems, and test some propulsion
Speaker 6: and communications and navigations systems before you land again. So
Speaker 6: that's what the screw will.
Speaker 2: Do half a century on. I mean, you know, when
Speaker 2: we first.
Speaker 3: Did this computer that could do as much as my
Speaker 3: iPhone wouldn't even fit in this studio. I mean, we've
Speaker 3: had such incredible technological advances that it seems to me
Speaker 3: it should be a lot easier this time. But I'm
Speaker 3: getting the sense that that's not the case.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 6: This is a four billion dollar proof of concept as
Speaker 6: part of a larger mission that doesn't have a fiscal
Speaker 6: architecture that we've seen before. This is the first time
Speaker 6: the Congress will have to sustain a multi administration program
Speaker 6: at this scale for this long it just happens to
Speaker 6: be complicated with with multiple vendors and with the technologies
Speaker 6: that NASA wants to study. As we get more advanced
Speaker 6: technologies and the missions become more complex, there are obviously
Speaker 6: a lot of other cultural and systemic issues that come
Speaker 6: up with the vision. NASA's vision just changed last week.
Speaker 6: Rather than putting up a gateway, which is a bit
Speaker 6: like a space station around the Moon, they will be
Speaker 6: landing on the Moon with multiple robotic missions in a
Speaker 6: lunar base soon. So with changing priorities, that also aids
Speaker 6: add to the complexity.
Speaker 3: I have say, four billion dollars sounds like a drop
Speaker 3: in the bucket from a government that spends like one
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy billion dollars to fund ICE, But I
Speaker 3: guess it depends what your priorities are.
Speaker 2: What do we get in return for that.
Speaker 3: Money, asn't they's what's the benefit coming out of this program?
Speaker 6: There are plethora of experiments I do want to highlight
Speaker 6: one for your audio. There is an avatar organ on
Speaker 6: a chip investigation aboard Artemis two and what it will
Speaker 6: do is it will measure human response to deep space radiation.
Speaker 6: And this is a commercial windfall for the pharmaceutical modeling sector,
Speaker 6: for biotech R and D sector, and for the space
Speaker 6: bioeconomy at large. And you can conduct this restarch about
Speaker 6: having to land on the Moon. So that's one of
Speaker 6: several experiments that the astronauts will conduct, and we will
Speaker 6: see a number of games and a number of sectors,
Speaker 6: including the space sector. You will have a SpaceX and
Speaker 6: Blue Origin also that are preparing to support the Artemis programs.
Speaker 6: So there are number of large stakes here.
Speaker 3: We're also not above a little healthy competition. Last time
Speaker 3: it was the US versus the Soviets. Now the Chinese
Speaker 3: are looking to get to the Moon by the end
Speaker 3: of this decade. How important is that competition? Do we
Speaker 3: also work together and who wins?
Speaker 6: You know, generationally, there seems to be a seismic shift
Speaker 6: in space races.
Speaker 2: You're right.
Speaker 6: Fifty years ago it was about racing to the moon
Speaker 6: and who had better technology. But today with over fifty
Speaker 6: nations that are signatory so the Artemis Accords, what we're
Speaker 6: seeing is that countries want to go together. And the
Speaker 6: question today is and whether America leads China to the moon,
Speaker 6: but whether that alliance really holds up. We have a
Speaker 6: comedian astronaut, Journey Hanson, who's joining three US astronauts on
Speaker 6: this journey, and that's the first for us. And so
Speaker 6: that alliance is proving to be strong and we look
Speaker 6: forward to strong corporation as we go together. Given the
Speaker 6: geostrategic environment for facing today.
Speaker 3: Has a great to get some intel from you. Hope
Speaker 3: we can get you in the studio here next time
Speaker 3: you're in New York as an a uzzo acoro there
Speaker 3: from the Harvard Belfer Center talking to us about the
Speaker 3: Artemis mission. We'll be following that for you every second
Speaker 3: of it tomorrow. Don't miss it right here on Bloomberg
Speaker 3: TV and on your Bloomberg terminal as well. Sticking with space,
Speaker 3: I'm also watching shares of rocket Lab. You can see
Speaker 3: they're up right now about three and a half percent.
Speaker 3: After yesterday rocket Lab got the okay on an acquisition.
Speaker 3: So investors are still looking at these highly volatile stocks
Speaker 3: as an interesting opportunity, at least on updays like today.
Speaker 2: Coming up.
Speaker 3: Electric bike startup also is reached a one billion dollar valuation.
Speaker 3: We'll talk to the co founder and president about the
Speaker 3: latest fundraise and a new partnership with door Dash to
Speaker 3: execute the last mile of delivery.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 3: Also is an electric bike and mobility startup that was
Speaker 3: spun out of the carmaker Rivian. It's now reached a
Speaker 3: one billion dollar valuation. In his latest funding around, the
Speaker 3: company raised two hundred million dollars and announced a strategic
Speaker 3: partnership with the delivery firm door Dash, which is investing.
Speaker 3: Also as president and co founder, Chris you joins us
Speaker 3: now and Chris you know, we were showing video of
Speaker 3: some dude ripping up the trails on an electric bike,
Speaker 3: which is I'm sure possible on your product. But I'm
Speaker 3: getting from the door Dash connection that your business case
Speaker 3: is more about last mile delivery?
Speaker 2: Is that the case? It's it's quite broad. Yeah.
Speaker 15: So we were incubated within Rivian for a couple of years,
Speaker 15: and just a year ago we spun out as Also
Speaker 15: an entire thesis that Argiana had in building also is
Speaker 15: around building the world's first vertically integrated and software defined
Speaker 15: EV platform that's optimized for small four factors and that
Speaker 15: goes for consumer use cases like the fun experience on
Speaker 15: our e Bi TMB, which we launch in October as
Speaker 15: well as importantly for commercial use cases, because we see
Speaker 15: that you know, if you look globally, the vast majority
Speaker 15: of trips that happen for the movement of people and
Speaker 15: goods happen in really dense suburban and urban areas where
Speaker 15: cost per mile and time for deliveries is really important.
Speaker 3: So I mean, first off, just on the bike, because
Speaker 3: it looks so cool.
Speaker 2: Do you have a clutch in the hub? I mean,
Speaker 2: how does that work? And how much does it cost?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 15: Our bike has a really fun and novel architecture behind it.
Speaker 15: So we have our propulsion system that's in house. It's
Speaker 15: called dream Ride and it's actually pedal by wire and
Speaker 15: so when you're pedaling into it, you're pedaling into a
Speaker 15: generator that gives a really incredible for S feedback that
Speaker 15: simulates the feeling of a bike. But importantly, through software
Speaker 15: allows for really an infinite set of different experiences, and
Speaker 15: so that architecture is really under what underpins are vertically
Speaker 15: integrated small EV platform that is now going into these
Speaker 15: other form factors.
Speaker 2: So what's the ballpark price for the end consumer?
Speaker 15: Yeah, so TMB starts at thirty five hundred dollars and
Speaker 15: you can outfit it from there. So it's a really
Speaker 15: really highly capable product at that price point.
Speaker 3: And I guess I'm guessing door dash will use these
Speaker 3: as part of your partnership or you'll supply them. Is
Speaker 3: this a pilot program or is it a more meaningful
Speaker 3: path to deploy at scale?
Speaker 15: Yeah, I find back up for a second. We constructed
Speaker 15: also really we think of our first phase of our
Speaker 15: business to address this massive wave of electrification of the
Speaker 15: existing small form factors. So, if you look at how
Speaker 15: trips happen today globally, the vast majority happened in things
Speaker 15: that are smaller than a car, and very few of
Speaker 15: those things are electric today. And so phase one of
Speaker 15: the also is building a purpose built EV platform to
Speaker 15: accelerate the letchification of these modes. Now, as the world
Speaker 15: becomes increasingly autonomous, we believe the factors that drive towards
Speaker 15: small form factors meaning congestion and cost per mile still
Speaker 15: exist and so one of the key things about our
Speaker 15: partnership with DoorDash that we're really really excited about is
Speaker 15: to deploy autonomous delivery at scale utilizing these much much
Speaker 15: more optimized smaller form factors.
Speaker 2: I see.
Speaker 3: So it's beyond the door dash ideas beyond electric bikes
Speaker 3: that human pedals and more about autonomous delivery, what using
Speaker 3: bike lanes and urban settings.
Speaker 15: Yeah, correct, If you look at our e bike architecture
Speaker 15: or our pedal quad architecture, these are highly capable evs
Speaker 15: that have really car like capabilities in some sense, meaning
Speaker 15: car like speeds, payloads, range, and if you look at
Speaker 15: how deliveries happen, happening in relatively dense suburban urban areas,
Speaker 15: increasingly congestion and the total cost of operation of these
Speaker 15: vehicles is quite critical and quite important, and so we
Speaker 15: believe it in working with DoorDash that the optimal answer
Speaker 15: often our vehicles that can traverse the intersection of roadways
Speaker 15: and road adjacent spaces like bike lanes, shoulders and curbsides.
Speaker 3: All right, Chris, we'll be following along with interest. Thanks
Speaker 3: so much for joining us. Chris, you there is the
Speaker 3: president of also after raising funding at a billion dollar
Speaker 3: valuation and doing a deal with door Dash as well.
Speaker 3: That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. Don't
Speaker 3: forget to check out our podcast. You can find that
Speaker 3: on the Bloomberg terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 3: and iHeart. We're looking at a pretty major rally underway today,
Speaker 3: especially for the tech stocks, with the Nasdaq gaining one
Speaker 3: and a half percent right now at twenty three two
Speaker 3: hundred and ninety six, the mag seven coming back from
Speaker 3: what has been a loss so far this year in
Speaker 3: the Socks Index up two and a half percent as well.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg
Speaker 3: M