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The trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) prepares for Reddit’s initial public offering (IPO) on March 21, 2024 in New York City. The social media platform Reddit priced its IPO in the range of $31 to $34 per share on Wednesday.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Even with hot artificial intelligence startups scoring hefty investment rounds at massive valuations, the broader venture funding environment remains ice cold.

Deal volume for U.S. venture investments in the first quarter sank to its lowest level since 2017, according to data published this week by PitchBook. The story was similar across the globe, with worldwide volume reaching its lowest since 2016 and total deal value falling to a level not seen since 2019.

The dearth of dealmaking shows that, despite a rebound in tech stocks last year and continuing hype around generative AI, venture capitalists are still largely on the sidelines. Startup financings soared to record levels in 2021, before slowing dramatically the following two years as inflationary concerns and rising interest rates pushed investors into safer assets and forced money-losing tech companies to focus on efficiency over growth.

The Federal Reserve has indicated that cuts to its benchmark interest rate are likely coming in 2024, but for the moment they remain steady. Fed Jerome Powell said Wednesday it will take a while for policymakers to evaluate the current state of inflation, keeping the timing of potential interest rate cuts uncertain.

“Sticky inflation has pushed hope of interest rate cuts to the back half of the year, and recession remains a possibility,” PitchBook analysts wrote in an email accompanying the firm’s data. “We don’t expect deal activity to pick up in a meaningful way in the near term.”

There were 2,882 venture deals in the first quarter, the lowest since the third quarter of 2017, according to PitchBook. The value of those deals totaled $36.6 billion, down 62% from a peak of $97.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021. The latest quarter was about even with the number from the third quarter of last year, but otherwise marks the lowest since the end of 2019.

Globally, the 7,520 deals were the fewest since the third quarter of 2016. And at $75.9 billion, investment was the lowest since mid-2019. The analysts said VCs across the globe have had trouble returning funds to limited partners over the past two years, which has made many reluctant to reinvest.

Some positive signs for the market came in the form of IPOs. Social media site Reddit and Astera Labs, which sells data center connectivity chips to cloud and AI infrastructure companies, held their debuts in March, the first two venture-backed tech companies to go public in the U.S. since September of last year. Rubrik, a data security software vendor, filed its IPO prospectus this week.

According to PitchBook, Reddit and Astera made up 73.4% of the total exit value in the U.S. in the first quarter.

“The prospect of increasing IPO activity created buzz in the market narrative because of how slow exits have been for two years,” the PitchBook analysts wrote.

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Amazon’s cloud unit records highest profit margin in at least a decade

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Amazon's cloud unit records highest profit margin in at least a decade

Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services, speaks during The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach, California, on Oct. 21, 2024.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Amazon said revenue in its cloud unit increased 19% in the third quarter, just missing analyst estimates.

Revenue at Amazon Web Services totaled $27.45 billion, according to a statement Thursday, while Wall Street was expecting $27.52 billion, based on StreetAccount estimates. Year-over-year growth has accelerated for five consecutive quarters.

The artificial intelligence portion of AWS is in the billions of dollars in annualized revenue, more than doubling year over year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who previously led AWS, said on a call with analysts.

“I believe we have more demand than we could fulfill if we had even more capacity today,” Jassy said. “I think pretty much everyone today has less capacity than they have demand for, and it’s really primarily chips that are the area where companies could use more supply.”

AWS leads the cloud infrastructure market over Google and Microsoft and is an important source of profit for Amazon.

On Tuesday, Google parent Alphabet said revenue from Google Cloud, which includes cloud applications as well as infrastructure, totaled $11.35 billion, up 35%. Microsoft said Wednesday that revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew 33%.

AWS recorded $10.45 billion in operating income, representing 60% of its parent’s profit. Analysts expected $9.15 billion.

The unit’s operating margin came in at 38%, the widest for AWS since at least 2014. Google Cloud reported an operating margin of 17%.

“We’re being very measured in our hiring,” Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s finance chief, said on the call.

During the quarter, Oracle said it will bring database services to AWS.

“If this is successful, we would love to find more pieces of their application stack that could run well in AWS and help customers do that,” AWS CEO Matt Garman told CNBC in a September interview.

Also in the quarter, AWS announced plans to discontinue some services, including code-repository tool CodeCommit. Garman told TechCrunch that AWS “can’t invest in everything.”

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Amazon’s advertising business grew 19% in the third quarter

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Amazon's advertising business grew 19% in the third quarter

Dominika Zarzycka | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Amazon’s online advertising business brought in $14.3 billion in the third quarter, up 19% year over year, in line with analysts’ estimates of $14.3 billion.

The Seattle tech giant revealed the financial results of its growing advertising unit as part of its latest earnings report Thursday. Amazon’s overall third-quarter sales were $158.9 billion, ahead of analysts’ estimates of $157.2 billion.

Amazon’s online advertising business is still a fraction of the company’s overall business, but its growth over the years has made it a major competitor to Alphabet and Meta, which lead the digital advertising market. Alphabet’s Google currently represents 27.7% of the worldwide digital advertising market, followed by Meta at 22.8% and Amazon with 8.8%, according to data provided to CNBC by Emarketer.

Meta’s third-quarter advertising revenue came in at $39.9 billion, which was up 19% compared with the year prior. That was slightly ahead of analysts’ expectations of $39.49 billion, according to StreetAccount. Ads accounted for 98.3% of Meta’s overall third-quarter revenue.

Alphabet generated $65.85 billion in third-quarter ad revenue, the company reported Tuesday. That was up 10% from $59.65 billion the year prior. Additionally, advertising sales for the company’s YouTube unit rose 12% year over year to $8.92 billion.

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Intel shares jump 9% on earnings beat, uplifting guidance

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Intel shares jump 9% on earnings beat, uplifting guidance

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger holds an artificial intelligence processor as he speaks during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 4, 2024.

Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Intel shares rose 9% in extended trading on Thursday after the chipmaker reported better-than-expected revenue and issued quarterly guidance that topped estimates.

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: Loss of 46 cents adjusted
  • Revenue: $13.28 billion vs. $13.02 billion expected

Intel’s revenue declined 6% year over year in the quarter, which ended on Sept. 28, according to a statement. The company registered a net loss of $16.99 billion, or $3.88 per share, compared with net earnings of $310 million, or 7 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

As part of its cost reduction plan, Intel recognized $2.8 billion in restructuring charges during the quarter. There were also $15.9 billion in impairment charges.

Intel has been mired in an extended slump due to market share losses in its core businesses and an inability to crack artificial intelligence. CEO Pat Gelsinger revealed plans during the quarter to turn the company’s foundry business into an independent subsidiary, a move that would enable outside funding options.

CNBC reported that Intel had engaged advisors to defend itself against activist investors. In late September, news surfaced that Qualcomm reached out to Intel about a possible takeover.

The Client Computing Group that sells PC chips recorded $7.33 billion in revenue, down about 7% from a year earlier and below the $7.39 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.

Revenue from the Data Center and AI segment came to $3.35 billion, which was up about 9% and more than the $3.17 billion consensus from StreetAccount.

Intel called for fiscal third-quarter adjusted earnings of 12 cents per share and revenue between $13.3 billion and $14.3 billion. Analysts had expected 8 cents in adjusted earnings per share and $13.66 billion in revenue.

During the quarter, Intel announced the launch of Xeon 6 server processors and Gaudi artificial intelligence accelerators.

As of Thursday’s close, Intel shares were down about 57% in 2024, while the S&P 500 index had gained 20%.

Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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