Hi All,
Welcome to our brief overview of portfolio news from the past few days.
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Straumann
Straumann reported solid Q2 results, though the stock saw pressure following the appointment of a new CEO.
The Numbers: Q2 organic revenue growth accelerated to 8.5% (beating expectations and improving from Q1), bringing H1 organic growth to 7.8%.
Guidance & Products: Management confirmed its FY26 outlook of high single-digit organic revenue growth and 140 to 170 bps of Core EBIT margin expansion at constant FX. The iEXCEL platform represented ~40% of global premium implant volumes in H1, while ClearCorrect remains on track to achieve breakeven by year-end 2027.
Leadership Transition: CEO Guillaume Daniellot will step down at the end of 2026 after 7 years as CEO and nearly two decades at the company. Christopher Norbye (former CEO of Swedish HVAC/climate control group Beijer Ref) will take over as CEO effective December 1.
Straumann delivered strong organic growth and reinstated guidance which was raised in Q1. However, appointing a CEO from outside the dental and medtech industry reasonably raises execution concerns. Management argues that deep internal clinical expertise balances Norbye’s commercial and international scaling track record. We will watch execution closely to ensure that the thesis doesn’t change.
Fortinet
Key takeaways from Fortinet’s latest presentation at Rosenblatt’s Technology Summit highlighted strong structural tailwinds:
ASP Expansion: Product revenue acceleration (+52% YoY in Q2’26) was driven by higher Average Selling Prices (ASPs) as enterprises upgrade to high-throughput firewall appliances to handle surging AI network traffic.
AI Data Centers & Silicon: Management noted returning demand from AI data center buyers, supported by purpose-built hardware (FortiGate 1200G), a dedicated sales push and early-stage silicon collaboration with NVIDIA.
Platform Consolidation: Rising AI-generated threat complexity is accelerating customer migration towards single OS platforms (FortiOS/FortiLink) to streamline IT management and lower operational headcount.
Fortinet is demonstrating that AI is not only a compute layer theme. It also creates security demands that directly benefit specialized cybersecurity hardware vendors.
Alphabet
Custom ASIC Chip: Waymo announced a custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for its latest-generation robotaxis, built on TSMC’s 5nm process. The chip delivers over 1,000 TOPS to accelerate real-time sensor processing and on-vehicle AI inference. Similar to TPUs, Alphabet is making moves to design its own driving silicon, reducing dependency on Nvidia.
Commercial Permit in Nevada: The Nevada Transportation Authority approved Waymo, Tesla, and Uber’s Aviari Services to operate as Autonomous Vehicle Network Companies in Clark County. Waymo and Aviari are permitted for up to 1,000 vehicles each in their first 12 months, while Tesla is authorized for up to 5,000 vehicles.
Amazon
Amazon is aggressively accelerating its drone logistics infrastructure, with Prime Air planning to expand to nearly 500 US cities and towns by the end of 2026, a sixfold increase from its current seven-state footprint.
The service offers delivery in as fast as 30 minutes across millions of items, including groceries, cosmetics, and medications, having already fulfilled hundreds of thousands of packages this year.
Paypal
PayPal and Venmo have expanded into high-ticket, recurring university tuition and fee payments through new integrations with Illumia, Nelnet, and TouchNet. By moving into higher education billing, PayPal embeds its checkout and security protections directly into large non-discretionary payments. This is another effort from Paypal to boost its Total Payment Volume (TPV).
That’s a wrap. See you soon.