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Cryptocurrencies were higher on Monday after recovering from a sharp drop in the previous week.

Bitcoin rose 1% to $19,457.00, according to Coin Metrics, while ether traded 1.5% higher at $1,317.01.

Prices have held steady since rebounding from a big drop that followed the release of the latest reading on the consumer price index, a key inflation gauge. Yuya Hasegawa, crypto market analyst at Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank, said the dip wasn’t deep enough to induce panic, however.

“It had been another tough week for the stock market until the CPI, so Thursday’s rebound will likely trigger unwinding of the recent risk off sentiment, which could have a positive effect on the price of bitcoin,” he said. “If the price recovers the $20,000 psychological level with a substantial trading volume in the next few days, bitcoin could test $23,000 next week.”

Despite a recent divergence in volatility, activity in bitcoin and ether trading remain closely tied to that of risk assets more broadly. Cryptocurrencies rose Monday along with the major stock indexes.

While October is typically a strong month for crypto trading, crypto has never been in such a strongly macro driven bear market and it remains to be seen how prices will fare by the end of the month.

“Hovering around yearly lows in trade volumes, bitcoin and ether are crying out for the next crypto-specific catalyst that will kickstart another bull run and a decoupling from equities,” Conor Ryder, an analyst at Kaiko, told CNBC. “The Merge proved yet again that macro is king and we saw that last week with a volatile reaction to CPI.”

Bitcoin climbed as high as about $19,900 in its big rebound last week. Ryder agreed that a substantial break above $20,000 could usher in a new level higher.

“Crypto markets have staged a respectable recovery since the initial reaction to the inflation reading and investors are now eyeing up the psychologically important $20,000 level for bitcoin, which should result in a climb higher if breached,” he said.

However, “it looks as if crypto and stocks will move in tandem for the rest of the year, both likely tracking sideways until there is a hint that the Fed will start to reverse the recent regime of monetary tightening,” he added.

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SoftBank-backed fintech Zopa aims to double profit this year as it eyes 2025 current account launch

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SoftBank-backed fintech Zopa aims to double profit this year as it eyes 2025 current account launch

Jaidev Janardana, CEO of U.K. digital bank Zopa.

Zopa

LISBON, Portugal — British online lender Zopa is on track to double profits and increase annual revenue by more than a third this year amid bumper demand for its banking services, the company’s CEO told CNBC.

Zopa posted revenues of £222 million ($281.7 million) in 2023 and is expecting to cross the £300 million revenue milestone this year — that would mark a 35% annual jump.

The 2024 estimates are based on unaudited internal figures.

The firm also says it is on track to increase pre-tax profits twofold in 2024, after hitting £15.8 million last year.

Zopa, a regulated bank that is backed by Japanese giant SoftBank, has plans to venture into the world of current accounts next year as it looks to focus more on new products.

The company currently offers credit cards, personal loans and savings accounts that it offers through a mobile app — similar to other digital banks such as Monzo and Revolut which don’t operate physical branches.

“The business is doing really well. In 2024, we’ve hit or exceeded the plans across all metrics,” CEO Jaidev Janardana told CNBC in an interview Wednesday.

He said the strong performance is coming off the back of gradually improving sentiment in the U.K. economy, where Zopa operates exclusively.

Commenting on Britain’s macroeconomic conditions, Janardana said, “While it has been a rough few years, in terms of consumers, they have continued to feel the pain slightly less this year than last year.”

The market is “still tight,” he noted, adding that fintech offerings such as Zopa’s — which typically provide higher savings rates than high-street banks — become “more important” during such times.

“The proposition has become more relevant, and while it’s tight for customers, we have had to be much more constrained in terms of who we can lend to,” he said, adding that Zopa has still been able to grow despite that.

A big priority for the business going forward is product, Janardana said. The firm is developing a current account product which would allow users to spend and manage their money more easily, in a similar fashion to mainstream banking providers like HSBC and Barclays, as well as fintech upstarts such as Monzo.

What leaders are saying about AI at one of Europe's biggest tech shows

“We believe that there is more that the consumer can have in the current account space,” Janardana said. “We expect that we will launch our current account with the general public sometime next year.”

Janardana said consumers can expect a “slick” experience from Zopa’s current account offering, including the ability to view and manage multiple account bank accounts from one interface and access to competitive savings rates.

IPO ‘not top of mind’

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It’s ‘liquidity, stupid’: VCs say tech investing is tough amid IPO lull and ‘nuts’ AI hype

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It's 'liquidity, stupid': VCs say tech investing is tough amid IPO lull and 'nuts' AI hype

Edith Yeung, general partner at Race Capital, and Larry Aschebrook, founder and managing partner of G Squared, speak during a CNBC-moderated panel at Web Summit 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Rita Franca | Nurphoto | Getty Images

LISBON, Portugal — It’s a tough time for the venture capital industry right now as a dearth of blockbuster initial public offerings and M&A activity has sucked liquidity from the market, while buzzy artificial intelligence startups dominate attention.

At the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, two venture investors — whose portfolios include the likes of multibillion-dollar AI startups Databricks Anthropic and Groq — said things have become much more difficult as they’re unable to cash out of some of their long-term bets.

“In the U.S., when you talk about the presidential election, it’s the economy stupid. And in the VC world, it’s really all about liquidity stupid,” Edith Yeung, general partner at Race Capital, an early-stage VC firm based in Silicon Valley, said in a CNBC-moderated panel earlier this week.

Liquidity is the holy grail for VCs, startup founders and early employees as it gives them a chance to realize gains — or, if things turn south, losses — on their investments.

When a VC makes an equity investment and the value of their stake increases, it’s only a gain on paper. But when a startup IPOs or sells to another company, their equity stake gets converted into hard cash — enabling them to make new investments.

Yeung said the lack of IPOs over the last couple of years had created a “really tough” environment for venture capital.

At the same, however, there’s been a rush from investors to get into buzzy AI firms.

“What’s really crazy is in the last few years, OpenAI’s domination has really been determined by Big Techs, the Microsofts of the world,” said Yeung, referring to ChatGPT-creator OpenAI’s seismic $157 billion valuation. OpenAI is backed by Microsoft, which has made a multibillion-dollar investment in the firm.

‘The IPO market is not happening’

Larry Aschebrook, founder and managing partner at late-stage VC firm G Squared, agreed that the hunt for liquidity is getting harder — even though the likes of OpenAI are seeing blockbuster funding rounds, which he called “a bit nuts.”

“You have funds and founders and employees searching for liquidity because the IPO market is not happening. And then you have funding rounds taking place of generational types of businesses,” Aschebrook said on the panel.

As important as these deals are, Aschebrook suggested they aren’t helping investors because even more money is getting tied up in illiquid, privately owned shares. G Squared itself an early backer of Anthropic, a foundational AI model startup competing with Microsoft-backed OpenAI.

Using a cooking analogy, Aschebrook suggested that venture capitalists are being starved of lucrative share sales which would lead to them realizing returns. “If you want to cook some dinner, you better sell some stock, ” he added.

Looking for opportunities beyond OpenAI

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Smart ring leader Oura plans international push as CEO touts new features and thinking on hardware

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Smart ring leader Oura plans international push as CEO touts new features and thinking on hardware

The Oura Ring 4

Courtesy: Oura

LISBON — Samsung’s foray into smart rings isn’t concerning the boss of the product category’s pioneer, Oura — in fact, Tom Hale says he’s seeing a boost in business.

“I’m sure that a major tech company making an announcement saying: ‘Hey, this is a category that matters. It’s going to be something that’s big.’ I think it’s probably helpful,” Hale told CNBC in an interview this week.

“In terms of the impact on our business, it has made zero impact. If anything, our business has gotten stronger since their announcement.”

In a wide-ranging interview with CNBC at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, Hale discussed Oura’s plans for new areas of insight it wants to give users, how he is thinking about new devices and the company’s intentions for international expansion.

Oura’s flagship product is the Oura Ring 4, a device known as a smart ring. It is packed with sensors that can track some health metrics, allowing Oura app users to learn more about the quality of their sleep or how ready they are to tackle the day ahead.

Founded in Finland in 2013, the company has been called a pioneer by analysts in the smart ring space. Oura said it has sold more than 2.5 million of its rings since it launched its first product. CCS Insight forecasts Oura will end the year with a 49% market share in smart rings.

Competition is starting to rear its head in the space. The world’s largest smartphone maker Samsung made its first venture into smart rings this year with the Galaxy Ring, which some analysts say has put the device category on the map and popularized it with a broader audience.

Hale is keen to position Oura as a “health company and a science company from the get-go,” with the aim of its product being “clinical grade.” Oura is seeking approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its ring to be used for diagnostics, although Hale declined to provide too many further details.

He did say that Oura’s focus on health and science is what sets it apart from competitors.

“If you’re actually thinking [of] yourself as a healthcare company, it is very different in many ways and different postures you might take towards data privacy. … So instead of being like a tech company where data is some sort of oil to be extracted and then used to create some kind of advantage of network effects, we’re really a healthcare company where your data is sacrosanct,” Hale said.

Oura’s business model relies on selling the hardware, as well as on a $5.99 monthly subscription service that allows users to get the insights from their ring. Oura says it has nearly 2 million subscribers.

“We look more like a software company than we do look like a hardware company. And I think that’s a function of the business model, and the fact that it’s working. Our subscribers are continuing to pay,” Hale said.

Oura eyes nutrition as next ‘pillar’

Oura takes the data gathered by the ring to provide insight to its users, focused on a person’s levels of sleep, activity and readiness to take on the day.

Hale said the company is now testing out nutrition, with users able to take a picture of their meal and log it into the Oura app. Also in the nutrition space, he highlighted Oura’s recent acquisition of Veri, a metabolic health startup that can take data from continuous glucose monitors — small devices inserted into a person’s arm — to give insight into someone’s blood sugar levels. Hale says that this, combined with Oura’s food tracking feature, could tell a user how certain meals affect their glucose levels.

Wearables provide opportunity to transform health, Oura CEO says

Many glucose monitors today are invasive and need to be inserted into the skin. Some observers see a non-invasive glucose monitor on wearable gear as something that could be transformative — but Hale warns this is a difficult goal to achieve.

“The idea that a wearable [device] will get there, I think, has definitely been a Holy Grail, and like the Holy Grail, they may never find it, because it’s a very difficult problem to solve with any kind of accuracy,” Hale said.

“Never say never. Certainly, technology continues to advance and all the capabilities continue to advance,” he added.

New hardware and AI

While Oura only sells rings currently, Hale sees the company developing new products in the future. He declined to elaborate.

“I think we’ll undoubtedly see other Oura-branded products, beyond the ring,” he promised.

He also said the company hopes to work with other devices as well, even if they are not Oura’s own hardware.

Like many hardware companies, such as Apple and Samsung, Oura is looking at ways it can use the advancing capabilities of artificial intelligence to give users more personalized insights. Smartphone makers have spoken about so-called “AI agents,” which they see as assistants that are able to anticipate what a user wants.

Oura is testing out an AI product called Oura Advisor in a similar vein.

“Think of it as the doctor in your pocket that knows all the data about you,” Hale said.

International push

Hale‘s presence at the Web Summit in Lisbon underscores his push to raise Oura’s brand awareness in markets outside of the U.S., especially as more people learn about smart rings.

“I think the point about the category being something that people are learning about, the unique benefits of that maturity, is in our favor. We’re expanding internationally,” Hale said.

He said he is particularly “excited” about venturing into Western Europe, including in countries like the U.K., Germany, France and Italy. Looking even further forward, Hale said an initial public offering for the business is not currently on the table, adding that operating as a private company gives Oura more “freedom.”

“I really enjoy the freedom that we get as a private company. We’re accountable to our investors and our shareholders, but they’re willing to let us operate with a lot license,” he said. “And if we decided we wanted to turn unprofitable because we wanted to invest in owning some category of healthcare software, it’ll be fine. They would be happy for that.”

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