01:38:38 · Eliot Pence, John Coogan, Jordi Hays
[01:38:38] S11: Canada has 2 and a half trillion under management by the Maple eight, so we brought two of those pension funds in. Exactly. BCI and OMERS. Just for [01:38:50] S1: the for the pensioners. It's good luck for the Canadian pensioners. It's fantastic. [01:38:58] S11: But, you know, those those funds like valor entries, investment, they're all global funds. Right? They have mandates to do global investing, and we wanted the best of the best. So we went out and got the best of the best. [01:39:09] S0: Very cool. What what have been the biggest breakthroughs since you were on the show last? I think it January of this year? [01:39:17] S11: Five months. Well, we did a 5,500 kilometer snowmobile operation across the Northwest Passage with Orinat, which is our our kid, our back end. So [01:39:28] S1: the drone ball? [01:39:30] S11: Yeah. Yes. Exactly. Across the Northwest Passage. [01:39:34] S0: Wait. Is that a snowmobile a drone snowmobile or you guys are like No. [01:39:39] S11: Literally snowmobiles. Dudes on snowmobiles for three months across that, testing out the communications back end. [01:39:47] S1: That's very cool. I [01:39:48] S11: love No Gong for that. [01:39:50] S1: No. We'll hit it again. [01:39:51] S0: We'll hit it again. [01:39:55] S1: My god. [01:39:55] S0: Tremendous tremendous Great to have you back on. Thank you, You're you're you're coming on at a good clip. So I I Yeah. Confident that we'll see you again this year. [01:40:06] S1: You know the name of the you know the name of the communications platform? Aura?
01:40:06 · John Coogan, Eliot Pence, Jordi Hays, Luca Ferrari
[01:40:06] S1: You know the name of the you know the name of the communications platform? Aura? [01:40:10] S11: It's called AuraNeb. Exactly. Wow. [01:40:13] S1: Powerful. Aura farming. It's good. I love it. Very on trend. Thank you so much for coming on the show. [01:40:18] S11: And happy Canada Day, guys. [01:40:20] S0: Happy Wait. It's Canada Day? [01:40:21] S1: It's Canada Day. We gotta hit that gong again. [01:40:24] S0: Wow. Four. [01:40:27] S1: Everyone who's listening, please text Jeremy Defon. Happy Canada Day. I'll give you his phone number right here. It's 29. [01:40:36] S0: Who? Oh, wow. Canada into the round of 16. We're hoping to follow you we're hoping to follow you guys in there. [01:40:43] S11: There's that. [01:40:45] S1: And thank you so much. [01:40:46] S11: Well, thanks, guys. [01:40:46] S0: So Yeah. Great to see you, Cheers. [01:40:48] S1: Have a good one. Let me tell you about Shopify. Shopify founded in Canada, Canadian company. Shopify is a commerce platform that grows with your business and lets you sell in seconds online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with AI agents. Good news. We're gonna do Canada Day. Canada Day Deep Dive, I'm glad we got one Canadian in the show. But up next, we have an Italian, Luca Ferrari, from Bending Spoons, the cofounder and CEO. Luca, how are you doing? Welcome to the show. [01:41:15] S4: Hey, guys. Nice to see you. Thank you for having me. [01:41:17] S1: Thank you for coming back on such a Great [01:41:19] S0: day. To have you back.
01:41:19 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Luca Ferrari
[01:41:19] S0: day. To have you back. [01:41:20] S1: How's it going? Where are you at mentally? Are you relieved? Are you excited? What's it [01:41:24] S0: like? Just another day, John. [01:41:26] S4: Just another day? I'm I'm exhausted. Exhausting. You know, I'm an extreme introvert and there's nothing worse for an extreme introvert to do a road show [01:41:36] S0: and media day. Yeah. [01:41:38] S1: Well, we appreciate it. [01:41:39] S0: Well, we can just hang out. We'll keep this we'll keep this casual. We'll pretend it's just the three of us [01:41:44] S1: catching Yeah. Yeah. [01:41:46] S0: Yeah. What how how is your approach overall? We had when when Klarna did their IPO, it was literally they had a handful of people on the team. I think it was like sub 10 people. [01:41:57] S1: Yeah. [01:41:58] S0: They dropped into the stock exchange. They they did the IPO and they Yeah. And they just they left like, you know, the next day. Yeah. What's been your what's been your approach [01:42:06] S1: because it's a company building moment. It's a celebration, but also it can be exhausting to fly a whole bunch of people around the world if you wanna do that. [01:42:14] S4: I think we've we've done probably the opposite. We Nasdaq told us that we broke a record by bringing over 500 people. Wow. Pretty much everybody who could fly on a cruise mounted. [01:42:24] S1: That's awesome.
01:42:24 · John Coogan, Luca Ferrari
[01:42:24] S1: That's awesome. [01:42:26] S4: No. It's been wild. I mean, look, we are a very competitive group and we're already if possibly, more motivated than we were before. But at the same time, it's it's good to pause for a second and and acknowledge the this milestone. [01:42:40] S1: It's not Yeah. [01:42:40] S4: Easy. So, you know, happy for it, but also just hungry to show that this is just the beginning. [01:42:45] S1: Yeah. What was the one liner that resonated on the road show most with bankers and investors who were trying to get their head around the company? [01:42:53] S4: I mean, the financials. [01:42:54] S1: Okay. Start there. That helps.
01:42:54 · John Coogan, Luca Ferrari, Jordi Hays
[01:42:54] S1: Okay. Start there. That helps. [01:42:57] S4: It's great. When you double the company pretty much every year for for as long as I can remember, that's that goes a long way Yeah. Getting people to to like you. No. I mean, jokes aside, I think the you have to ask the investors. Every person is different. In my opinion, what people liked about us is a combination of a technologically advanced platform where everything is highly integrated. We're pushing AI to its limits, which is obviously the promise for the future and how companies get to be run. At the same time, a track record that shows a combination of we are willing to make aggressive moves, whether it's in acquisitions, monetization, but at the same time, we invest just as aggressively and in a farsighted manner on product having added a ton of features, brought innovation to product that sometimes haven't seen it in a long time. That combination, I think, is unusual and we see a huge pipeline of acquisitions out there, I think that was quite resonant with at least the best investors. [01:43:59] S1: How crazy is this as a reason to be excited about what you're doing? A lot of the companies, there's a lot of fear around AI disrupting tech companies, but a lot of the companies in your portfolio have survived the [01:44:16] S0: Mobile. Mobile [01:44:17] S1: apocalypse and the [01:44:18] S0: Cloud.
01:44:18 · Jordi Hays, John Coogan, Luca Ferrari
[01:44:18] S0: Cloud. [01:44:19] S1: Cloud apocalypse. And so you have a number of organizations and brands that are just resistant to sudden disruption from the new hot thing in a way that a company that was started in the pre ChatGPT era might not be quite equipped, might still be in the hyper growth. But then there's a newer thing whereas a lot of your companies have maybe more resiliency built in just by virtue of the fact that they are maybe over five, over 10 years old at this point. Is that realistic? [01:44:51] S4: Oh, absolutely. I think the I don't think we have any significant business that's that hasn't been around for at least fifteen, sixteen years. Yeah. On the one hand, you know they're not gonna go to the moon, you know Yeah. Which is bad. I prefer it to be the case. But but on the other hand, yes, they've gone through so much and the customer base is so self selected at this point. Yeah. It's a huge advantage. You when you bet as a VC, for example, in a fast growing company, of course, that's exciting. Also, you need to believe that growth will stay. That company typically is the end of one offering that product or that product in that way. As competition comes up, you don't know what's going happen. You haven't seen it happen before. But for AOL or Eventbrite or Vimeo, we have seen it all. Like, they've had basically, they've lived in a perfect competition kind of environment for a decade plus. Yep. So plenty of clones Yep. Emulators of those kinds, you kinda know what you get. And then there's volume in that for sure.