Strategic Focus … and Spending … Continues Growing in the Office of the CFO

A talk with Evan Osheroff, Managing Director, Software Investment Banking

Many companies depend on the CFO’s office as a hub for strategic thinking. It is responsible for diverse functions ranging from budgeting and forecasting to cash flow management to deep data analytics to oversight of travel and human resources. Much of what CFOs do is mission-critical for their business, and they are hungry for solutions that drive better efficiency and profitability.

The growing array of companies serving the Office of the CFO will gather at Jefferies’ Fourth Annual Office of the CFO Summit on September 24th in San Francisco. Leaders from 75 companies, nearly 175 investors, and hundreds of other participants will discuss the most important trends, opportunities, and challenges for companies operating in this space in 2024 and beyond.

In preparation for the Summit, we sat down with Evan Osheroff, Managing Director, Software Investment Banking at Jefferies, to explore what is happening in the CFO office today and its implications for software companies and investors.  

Q: What’s the most notable trend in how CFOs allocate their resources?

EO: More and more purchasing is being consolidated under the CFO. For example, HR does not buy most HR software. Although HR may be looking at and using it, the CFO is purchasing, assessing, and paying for HR software. And that is just one example of the trend. Companies must focus more on profitability and where they are spending. Procurement processes are becoming more complex and critical to performance, necessitating more involvement from the CFO.

Q: We are in the early innings of artificial intelligence adaptation, but how is it impacting the office of the CFO?

EO: AI is on the roadmap of every single company. And they talk about it in two ways:

The first is taking all your data and making decisions faster and more effectively in real time. That’s the idea of having all your data and running AI on top of it. Second is a textual (really generative) conversation interface that allows you to ask questions about your data. You ask, “What happens if I hire five more salespeople in this territory? How does that impact our annual plan?” and it spits out an answer. This used to take weeks, teams of people, and a ton of iteration, and now it happens almost instantaneously.

But it is still incredibly early. CFOs right now believe that AI is a nice feature but not core to the business. We are just not there yet. Eventually, AI will drive more value and create more extensive capabilities. AI will augment this space. But we are a long way from AI transforming it.

Q: What kind of transactions are getting done in your corner of the software market?  

EO: M&A has picked up materially in the last twelve months. There are several reasons why.

Companies that are already platforms are filling in the last holes in their armor. We are seeing deals of that kind, both big and small. Another reason is that this space is increasingly seen as mission-critical. Most private equity firms have invested in enterprise software, and many have put money to work or are focused on the Office of the CFO. This will be evident if you see the attendees at our upcoming conference. So, expect PE to continue to be a significant driver of M&A in this space.

Q: Are you seeing more strategic or private equity deals?

EO: Private equity has been the lead dealmakers, although we expect strategic activity to pick up.  

It’s also important to note the strategics buying a lot of these assets are owned by private equity. These “sponsor-backed strategics” will play a growing role in dealmaking in the months ahead.

For example, a number of public companies were recently acquired by private equity at deal values ranging from $2 to $10 billion. We expect a handful more of these in the coming year.  Once those businesses are private, they will have the backing to execute on an M&A and operational strategy that may have been difficult or impossible to implement as a public company.  

Q: What is happening in the IPO market, and where do you see it heading?

EO: Generally speaking, across tech, there is massive pent-up demand. Tens of companies in this space that have crossed the $100 million threshold will want to go public. As the markets open, we expect many of these to start thinking more seriously about an IPO. 

Q: Is there any subsector that you are especially excited about?

Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) is one of the most critical technologies because that is where companies build their financial forecast, budgeting, planning, and forecasting. That’s where we are seeing a lot of innovation. That’s where we can talk about generational leaps and bounds in progress. A few years ago, FP&A software solutions could add value by letting a CFO move their data out of Excel spreadsheets onto a platform, enabling more collaboration and basic analytics. Now, you see solutions that can sort and make sense of data on a massive scale and layer in predictive analytics that can enhance decision-making and inform strategy. So, the speed of improvement is significant and accelerating.

Can Startups Outsmart Big Tech in the AI Race?

Technology revolutions like the internet and mobile computing always reshape the business landscape — but in different ways.

The internet birthed new market leaders such as Google, Amazon, and Netflix. Mobile tech, on the other hand, extended the dominance of incumbents like Apple, whose resources and distribution networks couldn’t be matched.

Now, the AI revolution is here. Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT are the fastest-growing consumer applications in history. Over 72% of organizations globally use AI in at least one business function. And tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft are pouring in record capital to get ahead.

The big question is, who will reap the rewards of this latest revolution – startups or incumbents?

This was a hot topic at Jefferies 2024 Private Internet Conference, “In the Age of AI,” where tech leaders and investors debated the future of these game-changing technologies.

Startups vs. Incumbents: Competing to Shape the Future

Gaurav Kittur, Global Co-Head of Internet Investment Banking at Jefferies, spoke to current tensions in the race to develop and commercialize AI.

“You have a tremendous amount of big tech capital going into companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. These [companies] will only get stronger, as their models and infrastructure layers build out,” Kittur explained. “You also have AI-first application businesses challenging the status quo. Their products are bringing innovation to massive industries like nursing, executive assistance, graphic design, and so on.”

To date, 44% of the capital invested in generative AI is controlled by tech giants: Microsoft, AWS, Anthropic, GitHub, OpenAI, and Alphabet. They have a natural advantage in this space, as AI models are notoriously expensive to build and train.

Incumbents can afford to spend billions on Nvidia’s graphics processing units, as Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta — Nvidia’s biggest customers — are currently doing. AI models are also only as good as their training data, and big tech companies have the best and most extensive data stores.

That said, AI-native startups have their own advantages. These companies thrive on speed and disruption, a contrast to incumbents’ resource and distribution strengths.

Take Perplexity, for example. This buzzy startup’s AI-powered search engine is challenging Google’s dominance in search. Their product completely reframes how users think about search – a level of disruption that entrenched incumbents rarely achieve.

Another complicating factor is open-source AI. Generative AI models like LLAMA II, Falcon, Stable Diffusion, and Mistral 7B provide datasets, prebuilt algorithms, and interfaces that any developer can use to power their AI applications.

While these models are owned by incumbents like Meta, they speed up innovation and time to market for new developers and researchers. The long-term impact of open-source AI, and who will ultimately benefit, remains to be seen.

What Comes Next in the AI Gold Rush?

Though AI products are growing and attracting capital at record rates, it’s still too early to declare a winner – startups or incumbents. At this stage, companies with an innovative idea and the team to execute it have immense opportunities ahead, regardless of their size.

For now, one thing is certain: everyone from venture capitalists to large public companies will continue pouring money into AI, preferring to overinvest and risk failure than miss the boat entirely.

How this capital plays out may shape the business and technology landscape for decades to come.

For more coverage of AI, tech investing, and more, visit Jefferies Insights.

What Will Drive India’s Growth for the Next 20 Years?

A Conversation with Jefferies India Country Head Aashish Agarwal

Many foreign investors think they know India. However, according to Aashish Agarwal, the Jefferies country head, India’s economy has undergone profound changes that are often not discussed or understood.

That’s why Agarwal is so excited to welcome attendees to the Jefferies India Forum in New Delhi on September 17-19, the largest foreign institutional investor conference India has ever seen. More than 250 investors and representatives of many of India’s most prominent corporations will attend, along with founders of large conglomerates, interesting start-ups, government ministers, regulators, and national security experts.

In preparation for the Jefferies India Forum, we sat down with Aashish to learn more about the local investment climate and some common perceptions and misconceptions of the world’s most populous nation.  

Q: How would you describe India’s growth story?

AA: India is the fifth largest equity market in the world, with an estimated equity market cap of more than $5 trillion. We expect to see a $10 trillion equity market cap by 2030. India’s economy is also the fifth largest globally and is expected to become the third largest by 2028. The International Monetary Fund predicts 6.3% growth over the next four years. Furthermore, 175 million individuals will join the working-age population over the next 20 years.

Q: What part of India’s growth story isn’t well known?  

AA: The first thing is diversity. India is the most diversified market globally after the U.S.

A single industry or a few large companies dominate most emerging markets. For example, you can’t think of South Korea without thinking of Samsung. You can’t think of Latin America without thinking of commodities. India is a large and well-diversified mix of every subsector you can think of.

Secondly, a large part of India’s domestic savings is beginning to be channeled into equity markets. This leads to a virtuous cycle of wealth creation and superior equity market returns.  

The percentage of household savings invested in equity markets has been growing steadily, which has been the key factor driving equity markets. Even today, it’s only 6% of household assets and has room to grow. That creates a wealth effect, driving consumption, more savings, and more economic activity.

The third thing is that the mindset of India’s companies has turned global. They no longer aim to become the best company in their region or the best company in the nation. They think on a global level.   

Q:  What would you say to anybody concerned about the valuations of Indian public equities?

AA: Yes, valuations are on the higher side in some sectors, but there are a lot of misconceptions about valuations. The clear reason for higher multiples is the visibility of India’s growth and the lack of it elsewhere in the world. There’s visibility on India’s GDP growing by 6.5% – 7% over the next decade. Corporate EPS is currently growing by 13-15%. On a PEG basis, India trades at 1.5x, which is in line with several other large global markets.

Secondly, the emergence of domestic retail investors has made the market stable. India’s market beta vs MSCI ACWI has decreased from 1x to 0.7x over the last ten years. Thus, India now offers great diversification for global investors, justifying the premium valuations.

Thirdly, investors are finding India expensive because they are examining the same companies they have examined for the past decade. Foreign institutional investors have traditionally invested in the financial sector, consumer staples, discretionary and tech services.

Different sectors will drive India’s growth over the next 20 years. These sectors will include infrastructure, hard assets, hospitals, hotels, airports, ports, manufacturing and so on. They are not necessarily expensive because their growth is still ahead of them.

Q: Will India be able to build enough high-quality infrastructure to unlock all this economic potential?

AA: India is about to embark on one of the most significant infrastructure initiatives in its history. It is very broad-based. One of our private companies is setting up a solar power plant five times the size of the city of Paris. Over the last 10 years, the number of airports in India has doubled to 150. Similarly, roads and railways have grown by 60-70%.

And it’s not just the hard physical assets. India has also developed cutting-edge public digital infrastructure, which has enabled several new-age companies to be established and scale up rapidly.

It is part of the trend of people in India thinking on a global scale. Yet most foreign investors are underinvested in infrastructure and new-age stocks. Once investors fully understand what is happening in these sectors, it will become clear that many of these stocks do not appear expensive, given their growth outlook. Our upcoming India investor forum showcases all these changes, and we have also planned several field trips around our forum so that the investors can touch and feel all these new changes.

Q: What about India’s IPO market?

AA: I believe 2025 will be a breakout year for IPOs. Recently, you have seen a lot of small companies getting listed. Over the next 12 months, you will likely see IPOs of $50 billion-plus and $100 billion-plus companies.

India also has one of the largest unicorn markets in the world. We have about 110 unicorns collectively valued at $350 billion. These companies are reaching a size where they will come out with IPOs in the next few years. A lot of multinational companies are looking to list their Indian businesses as well.

Q: What are the opportunities for private capital in India?

AA:  There has been a big mindset shift on family-owned businesses. It used to be that when you set up a company in India, you were thinking that the next four to six generations of your family would run the same business.  The next generation is now willing to explore options, including a capital infusion or even an exit to allow the business to attain greater scale and attract the right talent and access to capital. This is a big change.  

This opens up a plethora of opportunities for private capital to explore private and public markets.

Industrials: A Value Play on Transitions, Transformations and Other Megatrends

A Conversation with Peter Scheman, Global Co-Head of Jefferies Industrials

The industrial sector is vast and varied. It includes makers of valves, auto parts, and rocket engines, as well as companies providing services to homeowners, businesses, municipalities, and the automotive and aerospace value chains.

The Jefferies Industrials Conference will explore this enormous landscape in New York City on September 4-5. Over 1,400 leading executives, institutional investors, private equity investors, and VCs will meet to address near- and long-term investment opportunities and discuss the trends driving industrial sectors in the U.S. and internationally.

Before the conference, we sat down with Peter Scheman, the global co-head of Jefferies Industrials, to discuss his take on the sector and what the Jefferies Industrials team is preparing for in Fall 2024 and beyond. 

Q: What are the most critical macro trends shaping the industrial sector?

PS: There are several of them. Of course, interest rates are key, especially if your business touches the consumer. Then there is the adjustment of supply chains and reshoring, which have been issues for manufacturing since COVID. The elections are coming up, and there are the megatrends of climate change, the energy transition, and technological disruption, with all they imply.

Q: What are you seeing in terms of supply chains and reshoring?

PS: The supply chain issue cuts across many subsectors. After COVID, there was a general consensus—among American policymakers and business leaders—that America had to bring home critical things we were doing abroad. We needed more sustainable or reliable supply chains. This is a trend that’s going to stick.

We have already seen a dramatic rise in the construction of manufacturing facilities in the U.S. to $115 billion in 2022, a 40% increase from 2021. Manufacturing spending in July 2023 was 74% higher than in the same month in 2022.  

Recent federal legislation—like the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act—will also be an accelerant, and much of the spending and utilization of tax credits will occur in the years to come. Only about one-fifth of the federal funds allocated to infrastructure, energy, and climate projects through these bills have been spent. But there are enough durable, structural tailwinds propelling investments in this sector that even if the tax credits disappeared, I don’t think it would be catastrophic.

Q: What do you see for deal activity in the year ahead?

PS: We are seeing a big rebound in M&A, and it should continue to be more pronounced in all industries and subsectors in 2025. All the dozen or so industrials subsectors—whether it’s the auto aftermarket, packaging, aerospace, defense, transportation, metals, building products or anything else—are on different paths right now. However, the consistent thing is that M&A has been rebounding across all of them.

Corporate America stood up earlier this year and said, “You know we can look further into the future.” And across many sectors, we have seen a lot more strategic deals. In particular, we have seen a lot of activity around building products and building product distribution.

We expect private equity to be more active in buying and selling companies in the next year, too. But I’d say there is optimism across the board for 2025. Assuming we don’t have bad policy developments and geopolitics remain relatively stable, I think we are approaching a multiyear uptick in M&A activity.

Q: Do you think people will delay or wait to do deals until after the election?

PS: Historically, presidential elections have led to short delays in M&A deals, and the fourth quarter of an election year is generally a down quarter. An extreme example was when former President Trump was elected in 2016 and promised to lower corporate taxes. That killed the M&A deal market for longer than the fourth quarter because everybody was waiting for the tax cuts. This year, we may have an air pocket from October to December as people try to sort out the tax and regulatory implications of this election.

Q: Relative to other sectors, what makes industrials a sector that is attractive to invest in, especially for private capital?

PS: First, industrials can be a lower-multiple way of playing megatrends because some industrials are heavily exposed to and driven by these megatrends. Take electrification. Someone could invest in companies that own or develop power plants or in cheaper companies that make electrical cables.

Second, many industrials are economically sensitive, so you could use them to take advantage of a long expansion if you think we are in the early innings of one.

Third, much deal activity in industrials involves relatively small- to mid-sized companies, so they are approachable by a wide range of private equity and corporate players. There is a significant opportunity to deploy technology for efficiency and customer acquisition across the board in industrials.  

Finally, industrial companies are often easier to understand than companies in, say, technology or healthcare that require investors to have a strong background and a high level of specialization. If someone is not a specialist, industrials may be an area where they can more easily or quickly get their head around a business and feel more comfortable investing. 

Revamping the Grid: How AI and Renewables Are Reshaping US Energy Infrastructure

The United States’ electrical infrastructure is aging. Over 70 percent of the grid is more than 25 years old, and it’s showing signs of deterioration. Between 2016 and 2022, power outages more than doubled compared to the previous six years, exacerbated by severe weather events like hurricanes and deep freezes.

As they work to modernize the grid, legislators and investors see an opportunity to replace legacy infrastructure with cleaner energy sources. The key question is: Can the US rebuild the grid around renewables while ensuring a reliable energy supply?

Jefferies sat down with Scott Beicke, Americas Co-Head of Power, Utilities, and Infrastructure, to discuss the integration of renewables in the US grid; the role of baseload generation, storage, and transmission; economic opportunities in new grid infrastructure; and more.

Energy Demand from Technology is Rising: How Do We Meet It?

The nation’s energy supply is not just under pressure from severe weather events and aging infrastructure. It’s also bearing the weight of rising demand, especially from the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies. AI data centers alone are expected to add 323 terawatt hours of electricity demand in the US by 2030 – seven times more than what New York City currently uses.

“With the growth of AI and electrification, there’s an increased demand for energy capacity, and we haven’t seen much capacity growth from traditional generation sources,” Beicke shared. “A lot of it will come from regulated utilities, but we have to incent the private sector to deliver more capacity.”

Much of this new capacity is expected to come from renewable sources, Beicke said, highlighting solar and wind energy.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects solar power generation will increase by 75% from 163 billion kilowatt hours in 2023 to 286 billion kWh in 2025, and wind power will grow 11% in the same period.

“Capacity growth will have to come from gas generation, too.” Beicke emphasized. “A lot of people view gas as a bridge to the future, but a future without gas is very, very far off. To meet current and projected demand growth, traditional generation must play a role.”

Storage and Transmission: The Overlooked Keys to A Clean Grid

While investment has traditionally focused on large-scale renewable projects, funds are now starting to flow into crucial components like battery storage, the most invested-in energy technology of 2023. This technology is vital for managing demand surges by storing energy from renewable sources.

“Any growth in renewable energy capacity has to be augmented by storage solutions,” Beicke explained. “It can be hard to find storage opportunities with strong economics, but we’re seeing state subsidies and mandates support the industry’s growth.”

Another key area is transmission, or the delivery of energy from its place of generation to its place of use. Enhancing transmission infrastructure is essential for integrating new renewable capacity into the grid and reducing bottlenecks, which improves efficiency and can lead to consumer savings.

“People historically haven’t appreciated the role of transmission,” Beicke shared. “When you build a wind farm offshore, that comes with a significant transmission cost. We’re now starting to see dollars pour into renewable transmission, as the grid moves away from legacy thermal infrastructure.”

Investment Opportunities & Interest

Finally, Beicke turned to current investment and transaction trends in the energy sector. In 2023, global energy companies reached their highest valuations since 2016, with 1,135 deals generating $281 billion in global M&A value, an 8.2 percent increase over the previous year.

“There’s a huge amount of interest from private equity, especially in low-risk assets like transmission infrastructure. You also see continued interest in regulated utilities,” Beicke noted. “Funds also continue buying assets in the sector, so we’ve seen a lot of M&A activity.”

More broadly, Beicke expects investors to focus on reliability, as recent extreme weather events and geopolitical conflicts expose the vulnerabilities of global energy infrastructure. The importance of gas in maintaining a reliable, yet cleaner, grid is becoming more evident.

“Reliability is a huge issue for our clients. We’ve seen the challenges grid instability poses,” Beicke said. “We’ve seen the impact of weather-related reliability events in places like Texas. Cyber threats also keep people up at night; there are a lot of bad actors in the world who threaten our infrastructure.”

As the energy transition progresses, and the demand for new capacity grows, ensuring reliable US sources of power generation, transmission, and storage is critical for a successful energy future. For more insights from Scott Beicke and Jefferies, the leading advisor on M&A transactions in the energy sector for the last decade, follow along with Jefferies Insights.

Ralph Eads on Achieving a Sustainable Energy Future That Doesn’t Sacrifice Supply

Under the 2015 Paris Accords, 196 countries pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030. Since then, a tension has emerged between meeting the world’s energy demands and reducing emissions.

On one hand, there is a critical need for an energy system that pollutes less. On the other, renewable sources don’t offer the scale or reliability to meet current or future energy demand.

Ralph Eads, Vice Chairman and Global Head of Energy Investment Banking at Jefferies, believes there are opportunities to build a cleaner energy system beyond simply transitioning to renewables. In this interview, he outlines a demand-forecasted strategy for move the needle on global emissions.

The Thin Margin of Global Energy Supply

Eads began by addressing risks to global energy supply.

“Right now, global supply and demand are balanced. The world consumes about 102 million barrels a day and productive capacity is 104-106 million barrels,” he explained. “That’s a very thin cushion. Considering the political instability in producing regions, the risk of disruption is cause for real concern.”

Two years ago, these concerns materialized when the Russia-Ukraine war severely disrupted natural gas supply to Europe. Russia reduced its pipeline gas deliveries to the EU by more than half in 2022, sending shockwaves through the global economy.

Growing power demand from artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency puts further strain on supply. The global electricity needs of data centers, AI technologies, and cryptocurrency are expected to double by 2026. The power consumption of Nvidia’s graphics processing units alone in the coming year will be comparable to that of Houston, Texas.

“Many people push to ban hydrocarbons for environmental reasons, which is understandable,” Eads said. “But without them, we can’t produce enough affordable energy to meet global demand and ensure economic prosperity, especially for the poorer nations. We need a different path forward.”

Beyond Renewables: The Path to A Clean Energy Future

A sweeping transition to renewables is often seen as the only path to a cleaner energy system. Eads argues that a viable path to reducing emissions must include multiple energy sources. He highlights the rise of natural gas in the U.S. as an example of achieving environmental progress without jeopardizing supply.

“The fastest way to help the planet is by eliminating coal consumption. If you replace coal with natural gas, you significantly reduce emissions,” Eads shared. “In the United States, we’ve moved from coal to natural gas and cut emissions more than any other country in the world over the last 15 years. A key part of this switch is to make the production of natural gas even cleaner which is 100% feasible.”

“People often group natural gas with oil and coal, but it’s significantly cleaner. Innovations in natural gas present real opportunities to both benefit the environment and sustain production,” he explained.

Eads also emphasized the importance of nuclear power in the future energy mix. He referenced a new type of reactor that uses salt to cool uranium, significantly reducing the waste produced by conventional reactors.

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The push to reduce emissions is crucial, but with economic well-being and energy consumption so closely linked, a cleaner energy system cannot come at the cost of global supply. Fortunately, innovations, particularly in natural gas, are creating opportunities for clean energy solutions that can scale with increasing demand.

As political instability and AI place pressure on global production, a strategy that incorporates both clean technologies anda diverse power mix may prove the most effective way to achieve progress across multiple fronts.

For more insights from Ralph Eads and Jefferies, the leading advisor on M&A transactions in the energy sector for the last decade, visit the firm’s dedicated thought leadership site.

How a Market-Leading Baby Monitor Brand Uses AI to Drive Growth

At Jefferies’ 2024 Private Internet Conference, “In the Age of AI,” founders, investors, and financial leaders gathered to discuss a period of record transformation for the consumer internet sector.

Jefferies Insights had the chance to connect with Anushka Salinas, Chief Executive Officer of Nanit and former President and Chief Operating Officer of Rent the Runway.

Nanit, a parenting tech company, offers smart baby monitors that track movement, sleep, breathing, and more. Blending computer vision, machine learning, and sleep science, Nanit’s products are now the top-grossing smart baby monitors in the United States.

Jefferies’ conversation with Salinas was timely. Consumer tech companies are rapidly adopting AI across their products, operations, and go-to-market strategies. Though AI’s potential is immense, questions remain. Many are skeptical of its immediate benefits, for both consumers and enterprises.

Nanit, founded nine years ago, stands out as a rare company for which AI is alreadya critical part of its success. Its products showcase AI’s potential to prove its worth beyond the current hype.

In this conversation, Salinas shared how AI helped fuel Nanit’s product suite and market leadership. Her insights offer a roadmap for founders, advisors, and investors as they search for practical ways to harness AI for growth.

The following Q&A was lightly edited for clarity and length.

Nanit is the most used app on my phone – and that’s true for so many young parents. Tell us more about Nanit and your journey to the company.

Nanit is a parenting tech company, founded nine years ago by two computer vision engineers. Two dads who wanted to hack baby sleep. They built an innovative product, and today, we’re the number one smart baby monitor in the US.

I spent the majority of my career in retail fashion, a category that thinks deeply about harnessing data to deliver better customer and business outcomes. Joining Nanit, I’ve been amazed by the way we use data. We’ve built an AI algorithm on billions of hours of tracked sleep, and it’s incredible.

How is Nanit’s product differentiated from other smart baby monitors?

It’s completely differentiated from other products in the category. We use computer vision and a host of algorithms to provide deeper insights to parents.

These algorithms cover different pillars: sleep, developmental milestones, breathing, speech. That’s the key difference: we can provide unique insights to families, aiding them through their parenting journey.

We’ve continued to build our AI capabilities based on our data set. These incremental opportunities have proved very meaningful, as we’ve added tools like movement tracking and breathing motion monitoring. Today, we’re still the only company that offers breathing monitoring without any wearable for the child. We’re bringing our customers more and more innovation.

At this conference, everyone is talking about AI – how it can be applied to different businesses and verticals. How has AI become an essential part of Nanit’s products?

AI is core to what we do. It’s how the company was founded. There’s some skepticism around AI in categories like ours, but we’ve always believed it goes hand in hand with our success as a business.

At Nanit, we have a behavioral AI model that captures scenes and behaviors through computer vision. Our algorithms help us analyze a data set and provide insights to our customers: parents.

Talk about parenting as a business. Is it a healthcare business? Is it a consumer business?

That’s the million-dollar question. Today, we’re definitely a parenting business. Our products are built to support parents in their journey.

Every year, though, our product suite grows. We started with a camera, and now we have a sound light, an audio monitor, and more. Now, we’re connecting products to create predictive routines. That’s what differentiates us.

Where’s the next horizon? The capabilities, data set, and algorithms we’ve developed are extraordinarily powerful, and I believe they are applicable beyond the parenting space. That’s what we’re working through now – the next horizon of growth.

Where do you see Nanit going in three to five years?

We will have significantly more market share. When we started, no one considered paying $400 for a baby monitor, plus a subscription fee. We created the category. I think we’ll continue to see share expansion there.

Then, I expect us to expand our data set and capabilities into new markets – perhaps more on the healthcare side. We have something very powerful and proprietary to build on.

Mid-Year Review: A Record-Breaking 1H of 2024 for the Secondary Market

In July, Jefferies’ Private Capital Advisory team released its mid-year review of the secondary market, consolidating discussions, surveys, and research from the market’s biggest and most influential limited partners, general partners, and secondary buyers.

This report follows Jefferies’ H2 2023 secondary market review, which predicted near-record secondary volume, higher LP pricing, and a sustained capital overhang for fiscal year 2024. The latest findings show the first half of the year largely met these expectations.

Here, Jefferies Insights shares high-level takeaways from the Private Capital Advisory team.

It’s shaping up to be a banner year for the secondary market.

Global secondary volume hit a record $68 billion in H1 2024, driven by near-peak dedicated secondary capital dry powder, a surge in well-capitalized new entrants, increased demand from ’40 Act funds fueled by retail capital inflows, and a supportive macroeconomic and valuation environment over the first half of the year.

Jefferies original (H2 2023) and revised (H1 2024) expectations for the secondary market.

Key First Half Themes

Liquidity Demands Drive Record First-Half Volume

The first half of 2024 saw record-breaking secondary market volume, surpassing the previous record of $57 billion set in the first half of 2022. Activity was robust as limited partners (LPs) sought liquidity across their portfolios, bringing larger and more diversified transactions to market. General partner (GP)-led volume also grew as a function of robust demand for continuation funds by investors and continued adoption of the structure from sponsors desiring to generate liquidity for their LPs and hold attractive companies for longer.

Jefferies expects these trends to continue in H2 2024.

LP Portfolio Pricing Climbs Higher

The average high bid for all strategies was 88% of net asset value (NAV), a 300-basis point increase from the second half of 2023. Pricing for LP portfolios steadily improved throughout the first half of 2024, driven by expectations of near-term interest rate cuts, strong portfolio performance, and a gradually improving exit environment. Both newer vintage funds and older tail-end funds saw price increases as buyers showed strong demand for diversified exposures.

Buyside Demand Catalyzes GP-Led Volume Growth

GP-led activity in the first half of 2024 continued to benefit from the momentum in the second half of 2023. On a last twelve months (LTM) basis, GP-led volume reached $62 billion, marking one of the highest periods of sustained activity since the inception of the GP-led secondary market. Continuation funds comprised 14% of global sponsor-backed exit volume in H1 2024, up from 11% in 2023. As continuation funds have become mainstream in private equity and expanded into other segments of the private markets, well-capitalized secondary investors are eager to partner with a range of sponsors on these deals.

Jefferies expects continued momentum in the GP-led market.

Record Levels of Available Capital

At the end of the first half of 2024, dedicated available capital, including near-term fundraising, was estimated at $253 billion. This was nearly unchanged from 2023. Record fundraising, combined with the emergence of increasingly active and sizeable ’40 Act funds raising capital from retail channels, supports a well-capitalized buyside heading into the second half of 2024.

What To Expect in H2 2024

Looking ahead to the second half of 2024, Jefferies forecasts record annual transaction volume exceeding $140 billion by year-end. Growth will be driven by increasing transaction supply, robust secondary pricing, and anticipated interest rate cuts that could boost further growth and equity returns.

Jefferies expects sustained LP-led transaction volume near $40 billion, with GP-led transactions rising to over $35 billion. LP portfolio pricing is anticipated to continue climbing, potentially exceeding 90% of NAV in the second half of 2024 — levels not seen since 2021 — barring any sustained period of public markets volatility.

Additionally, the continued emergence of ’40 Act funds and other alternative capital pools is expected to further drive demand for secondary transactions and maintain dedicated available capital despite significant deployment from traditional secondary funds.

For Jefferies’ full H1 2024 review of the global secondary market, click here.

How Does Sunlight Deflection Fit Into Climate Change Mitigation?

The scientific community is exploring every avenue to expand and accelerate efforts around climate change. One area of research and investment is solar radiation modification (SRM), which reflects sunlight away from Earth’s atmosphere and into space.

Although much remains uncertain about SRM’s impacts — such as the effect of aerosols on clouds and climate — research in this area is expanding rapidly. Over the last few years, the US government has allocated more than $47 million to increase understanding of cloud aerosol effects and SRM.

Jefferies’ Sustainability and Transition Team hosted three experts to discuss the trajectory of solar radiation modification and its role in decarbonization.

What is Solar Radiation Modification?

Solar radiation modification (SRM), also known as solar geoengineering or solar radiation management, refers to large-scale methods to increase the amount of sunlight reflected into space, thereby reducing global mean temperatures. The goal is to reduce Earth’s absorption of solar radiation, which gets trapped in the atmosphere as infrared radiation and causes planetary warming.

Once seen as taboo, these methods are gaining traction in the climate science community. The UN Environment Programme and the US Office of Science and Technology Policy have both released reports recommending further research.

Several SRM methods exist, with the most promising involving the release of aerosol particles to reflect sunlight from the stratosphere or making low-lying marine clouds more reflective.

Many researchers view SRM as a temporary solution to limit global warming until emissions reduction and carbon removal technologies can be scaled sufficiently to stabilize temperatures.

SRM: The Two Leading Techniques

The two leading techniques within SRM are (1) Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) and (2) Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI).

1. Marine Cloud Brightening

Counterintuitively, pollution particulates, including aerosols, may offset between 0.3 and 1.1 degrees of greenhouse gas warming. This occurs because aerosol pollution reduces the size of water droplets in clouds, making them more reflective of sunlight.

Reducing aerosol pollution, therefore, might inadvertently accelerate global warming.

One leading SRM technique, Marine Cloud Brightening, aims to replicate this effect using sea-salt spray from ships. This would involve thousands of ships spraying particulates into targeted marine cloud regions, potentially cooling the Earth by 1-2 degrees Celsius.

The impacts of this technique, including its effect on precipitation in the targeted regions, remain uncertain.

2. Stratospheric Aerosol Injection

When large volcanoes erupt, such as Mount Pinatubo in 1991, they emit particulates into the atmosphere that linger for some time. These eruptions historically trigger a cooling effect of more than 0.5 degrees Celsius for up to two years, with observed recoveries in Arctic ice during these periods.

To emulate this effect, scientists theorize that continuously populating the lower stratosphere with a steady level of aerosols could reflect warming solar radiation.

Practically, this would involve hundreds of aircraft dispersing aerosols, such as sulfur dioxide, from optimized altitudes and locations. The resulting global cooling effect could last 1-2 years.

This method, like Marine Cloud Brightening, carries risks. Potential side effects include impacts on the ozone layer, weakening of the hydrological cycle, increased acid rain, and other environmental consequences.

Areas of Controversy and Pushback

Solar radiation modification is attracting significant interest — but it’s also drawing considerable controversy.

In January 2022, there was a call for an “International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering,” urging “immediate political action from governments, the United Nations, and other actors to prevent the normalization of solar geoengineering as a climate policy option.” To date, over 500 academics from more than 60 countries have supported this agreement.

In March 2024, at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), governments failed to reach a consensus on how to regulate solar radiation management. Switzerland proposed establishing a UN expert group to research SRM, but this was met with significant opposition from a group of African countries and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).

The United States: The Global Leader in Climate Intervention Research

The US is currently the only country deploying aircraft into the stratosphere for climate research. SRM projects have bipartisan support in Congress, though budgets remain in the single-digit-million-dollar range.

In 2020, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) established the Earth’s Radiation Budget (ERB), a comprehensive research effort to study the scientific foundations and impacts of SRM approaches. Although its budget is modest, it has more than doubled since its inception.

Other countries and bodies, including China, the United Kingdom, the European Commission, and Australia, are also conducting experiments to explore the potential of SRM techniques.

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Solar Radiation Modification remains a novel and underexplored field of decarbonization research, and it is not without some risks and controversies. Still, amid the push to expand and accelerate decarbonization efforts, SRM remains a crucial area for scientists, governments, and investors to actively monitor.

The Jefferies Sustainability and Transition Team will continue tracking the sector’s developments as it attracts more resources and attention.