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We'll be 'healthily reducing' our losses this year, Carousell CEO says

Secondhand goods marketplace Carousell expects to “healthily” reduce its losses this year, putting it on track to profitability, the firm’s CEO told CNBC.

“This year, we continue to expect revenue to grow healthily. And I think in a very promising sign, we actually are going to be healthily reducing our losses this year as well,” said Quek Siu Rui, co-founder and CEO of Carousell said Monday, adding that the firm is “on track” with its plan to profitability.

In 2022, the Singapore-based company posted $82.5 million in revenue, a 67% jump from the year before, according to regulatory filings. However, losses in 2022 widened 57% year-on-year with higher expenses.

The Singapore-based firm was founded in 2012 as an online classified advertisements marketplace where users can list and sell their used goods for money.

“We acknowledge that the recommerce opportunity is a really big one. We are actually investing to grow these different initiatives and strategies,” Quek said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia,” referring to the sale of previously owned goods, whether used or brand new.

Research shows that the global circular economy — which seeks to reduce waste and promote recycling and reusing — could generate $4.5 trillion in additional economic output by 2030.

Southeast Asia expansion

From automobiles to fashion, Carousell has been aggressively expanding its presence across Southeast Asia.

In 2019, it agreed to merge with Telenor Group’s classifieds firm 701Search, which operates marketplaces Mudah in Malaysia, Chợ Tốt in Vietnam, and OneKyat in Myanmar. In the same year, Carousell acquired OLX Philippines — which claimed to be the largest online classifieds site in The Philippines.

It also bought online automotive platform OneShift in 2018 and authenticated sneakers and streetwear marketplace Ox Street in 2021, and launched the Ox Luxe service which allows users to buy, sell, and consign pre-owned luxury items such as handbags and watches.

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Last year, Carousell acquired Singapore-based second-hand fashion retailer Refash and Indonesian electronics recommerce platform Laku6 to bolster its expansion into the fashion and electronics markets.

“We feel confident that we can actually continue to generate healthy growth towards this very meaningful direction of recommerce growth,” Quek told CNBC.

“[With the] support of our investors, we are actually very well capitalized to execute on these strategies. So we feel very confident about our capital position.”

Cost cutting

Carousell last raised $100 million in a September 2021 funding round, taking its valuation to $1.1 billion. Media reports last year said the company dropped SPAC merger talks with U.S.-headquartered private equity firm L Catterton amid market volatility.

A SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, is a shell company that raises capital in an IPO and uses the cash to merge with a private company in order to take it public.

Challenging macroeconomic conditions such as high interest rates and soaring inflation have caused companies to cancel or delay their IPO plans.

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U.S. lifts chip software curbs on China amid trade truce, Synopsys says

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U.S. lifts chip software curbs on China amid trade truce, Synopsys says

Synopsys logo is seen displayed on a smartphone with the flag of China in the background.

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

The U.S. government has rescinded its export restrictions on chip design software to China, U.S.-based Synopsys announced Thursday. 

“Synopsys is working to restore access to the recently restricted products in China,” it said in a statement

The U.S. had reportedly told several chip design software companies, including Synopsys, in May that they were required to obtain licenses before exporting goods, such as software and chemicals for semiconductors, to China. 

The U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

The news comes after China signaled last week that they are making progress on a trade truce with the U.S. and confirmed conditional agreements to resume some exchanges of rare earths and advanced technology.

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Datadog stock jumps 10% on tech company’s inclusion in S&P 500 index

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Datadog stock jumps 10% on tech company’s inclusion in S&P 500 index

The Datadog stand is being displayed on day one of the AWS Summit Seoul 2024 at the COEX Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul, South Korea, on May 16, 2024.

Chris Jung | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Datadog shares were up 10% in extended trading on Wednesday after S&P Global said the monitoring software provider will replace Juniper Networks in the S&P 500 U.S. stock index.

S&P Global is making the change effective before the beginning of trading on July 9, according to a statement.

Computer server maker Hewlett Packard Enterprise, also a constituent of the index, said earlier on Wednesday that it had completed its acquisition of Juniper, which makes data center networking hardware. HPE disclosed in a filing that it paid $13.4 billion to Juniper shareholders.

Over the weekend, the two companies reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, which had sued in opposition to the deal. As part of the settlement, HPE agreed to divest its global Instant On campus and branch business.

While tech already makes up an outsized portion of the S&P 500, the index has has been continuously lifting its exposure as the industry expands into more areas of society.

DoorDash was the latest tech company to join during the last rebalancing in March. Cloud software vendor Workday was added in December, and that was preceded earlier in 2024 with the additions of Palantir, Dell, CrowdStrike, GoDaddy and Super Micro Computer.

Stocks often rally when they’re added to a major index, as fund managers need to rebalance their portfolios to reflect the changes.

New York-based Datadog went public in 2019. The company generated $24.6 million in net income on $761.6 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2025, according to a statement. Competitors include Cisco, which bought Splunk last year, as well as Elastic and cloud infrastructure providers such as Amazon and Microsoft.

Datadog has underperformed the broader tech sector so far this year. The stock was down 5.5% as of Wednesday’s close, while the Nasdaq was up 5.6%. Still, with a market cap of $46.6 billion, Datadog’s valuation is significantly higher than the median for that index.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.

CNBC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on the cloud computing outlook

Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on the cloud computing outlook

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Ether and related stocks gain amid the latest crypto craze: Tokenization

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Ether and related stocks gain amid the latest crypto craze: Tokenization

A representation of cryptocurrency Ethereum is placed on a PC motherboard in this illustration taken on June 16, 2023.

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Stocks tied to the price of ether, better known as ETH, were higher on Wednesday, reflecting renewed enthusiasm for the crypto asset amid a surge of interest in stablecoins and tokenization.

BitMine Immersion Technologies, a bitcoin miner that announced plans this week to make ETH its primary treasury reserve asset, jumped about 20%. It’s gained more than 1,000% since the announcement. Betting platform SharpLink Gaming, which has also initiated an ETH treasury strategy, added more than 11%. Bit Digital, which last week exited bitcoin mining to focus on its ETH treasury and staking plans, jumped more than 6%.

“We’re finally at the point where real use cases are emerging, and stablecoins have been the first version of that at scale but they’re going to open the door to a much bigger story around tokenizing other assets and using digital assets in new ways,” Devin Ryan, head of financial technology research at Citizens.

On Tuesday, as bitcoin ETFs snapped a 15-day streak of inflows, ether ETFs saw $40 million in inflows led by BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust. ETH ETFs came back to life in June after much concern that they were becoming zombie funds.

The price of the coin itself was last higher by 5%, according to Coin Metrics, though it’s still down 24% this year.

Ethereum has been struggling with an identity crisis fueled by uncertainty about the network’s value proposition, weaker revenue since its last big technical upgrade and increasing competition from Solana. Market volatility, driven by geopolitical uncertainty this year, has not helped.

The Ethereum network’s smart contracts capability makes it a prominent platform for the tokenization of traditional assets, which includes U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins. Fundstrat’s Tom Lee this week called Ethereum “the backbone and architecture” of stablecoins. Both Tether (USDT) and Circle‘s USD Coin (USDC) are issued on the network.

Fundstrat's Tom Lee on being named chairman of BitMine Immersion Technologies

BlackRock’s tokenized money market fund (known as BUIDL, which stands for USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund) also launched on Ethereum last year before expanding to other blockchain networks.

Tokenization is the process of issuing digital representations on a blockchain network of publicly traded securities, real world assets or any other form of value. Holders of tokenized assets don’t have outright ownership of the assets themselves.

The latest wave of interest in ETH-related assets follows an announcement by Robinhood this week that it will enable trading of tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs across Europe, after a groundswell of interest in stablecoins throughout June following Circle’s IPO and the Senate passage of its proposed stablecoin bill, the GENIUS Act.

Ether, which turns 10 years old at the end of July, is sitting about 75% off its all-time high.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

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