Frazis Capital Podcast

Michael Frazis attempts to understand the FDA's decision to approve Biogen's aducanumab for Alzheimer's and the possible ramifications. 

Timestamps  ·      0:32 – Our fast-growing portfolio companies ·      2:21 - Frazis life sciences strategy update ·      5:18 – RNAi Biology ·      7:15 – Alnylam: RNAi clinical development pipeline and recent execution ·      8:16 – Timing and valuation in life sciences ·      9:26 – What do we think of CRISPER? ·      11:03 – Companies targeting sickle cell disease ·      11:56 – Companies targeting beta-thalassemia ·      12:53 – Platform technologies: Moderna ·      15:12 – Platform technologies: Ultragenyx ·      16:30 – Special focus: Alzheimer’s ·      18:50 –Alzheimer’s APOE4 ·      23:50 – Could Alzheimer’s be ca

Michael Frazis discusses the growth sell-off in equities as of 15 May 2021.

Dr. Robert Stretch is a specialist in Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine. After graduating from Yale School of Medicine in 2014, he completed subspecialty training at BIDMC in Boston and UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. He is board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM).

This is the audio from an investment update Michael Frazis gave on 23 April 2021. 

Brian Hartzer joins us to talk about his new book 'The Leadership Star', available from Amazon.  Brian was CEO of Westpac from 2014-2020. For those who don't know Westpac is Australia's second largest bank with over $800 billion of assets.  Brian discusses his 'Leadership Star' framework and pivotal moments in Australia's banking history. Brian also shares his views on cryptocurrency, neobanks, alternative lenders, the Buy-Now-Pay-Later movement, and the future of financial technology more broadly.   Timestamps 00:05 – Introducing Brian 03:15 – Brian's new book: ‘The Leadership Star: A Practical Guide to Building Engagement’ 06:00 – Shifting from management consulting to running ANZ’s credit card business 08:25 – Brian’s perspective on the evolution of credit cards in Australia 10:25 – The five c’s of leadership: care, context, clarity, clearing the way and celebrate 11:05 – Why the phrase ‘I’m just a teller’ is a sign of bad management 13:00 – Why cleaners are the most important workers at D

Michael Frazis gives an update on SPACs, rising interest rates, tech valuations and what might happen next. Timestamps  1:35 - Quick review of 2021   2:30 - Thoughts on Cathie Wood and ARK  3:59 - Expansions and contractions in software multiples  7:40 - Snowflake   8:47 - SPACs: why we like them and why they're dangerous (hint: the same reason) 12:02 - Why we hope SPACs encourage leading tech firms to list sooner 14:21 - Dodgy forecasts 16:51 - Why we rule out most SPACs in the fund 18:00 - Navigating rising interest rates  22:33 - The recent sell-off 24:32 - How we look at market rotations 26:46 - Coupang IPO

January 2021 - one of the more amusing weeks of finance.  0:57 - The short squeeze 2:31 - The reality of Robinhood's 'free' trades 5:08 - The hidden consequences of Hedge Fund strategy 6:51 - How useful is management access? 9:56 - The gamma squeeze 12:15 - How this forced people to rethink how they discuss finance? 13:39 - Is the squeeze squoze? 14:37 - Timing and recovery 15:40 - Our strategy 17:24 - An important dynamic of short interest 19:43 - The true signal of growth 20:32 - How fund managers missed a multidecade trend? 23:00 - A changing guard in allocation decisions

1.40 - Quick review of 2020  2.35 - How to survive huge market swings like March 2020 and 2008-2009  3.45 - Discussion on support mechanisms in place in equity markets (central banks, fiscal stimulus, actions by management teams, etc)  5.45 - Current investment strategy is to stay invested & make sure we are constantly holding winners  7.35 - Sound fundamental reasons why companies with intense customer love, explosive growth, and market leadership perform so well  8.15 - Our companies are investing heavily. When revenue comes in they open new offices, hire marketing staff and etc which promises a greater return on investment. Many categorise these investments as costs, which gives the opposite (incorrect) answer  10.17 - Investment in tech and the "companies of the future" requires long term investment with value creation over 5 - 10 years  11.50 - Question: Have you invested in Nio? Nio capitalises on the necessity of an electric China. There is demand in the Chinese e

Terry Hau interviewed us for HedgeVista.

Jackie Vullinghs @ Airtree 0:11 - Introducing Jackie 0:54 - University in Australia vs the UK 3:08 - Interviewing at Oxford and Cambridge 3:56 - Approach to VC interviews with company founders 5:55 - Jackie discusses AirTree's key portfolio focus (digital health, fintech, consumer) 6:48 - Companies are staying private for longer, is that good or bad? 8:38 - How sustainable are the accelerations of digital health and ecommerce? 9:57 - Low relative penetration of ecommerce in Australia 11:25 - Equity derivatives in London 13:39 - Jackie's shift to start-up, Listable, Kalo 14:50 - August tech runup & option trading 20:46 - Alex Danco: are founders allowed to lie when selling a vision? 21:58 - Short reports and long-term growth of heavily shorted companies 24:27 - Interviews are a valid test for start-up hopefuls 26:14 - Creative arts and consumer tools to monetise creative pursuits 27:58 - Online writing & Jackie's substack (https://jax.substack.com/) 31:00 - As a collective, do retail investors make m

Jarred Shein joins us to talk digital health. Jarred has invested in digital health at MH Carnegie and Qure, an Israeli based VC fund.  0:20 - Introducing Jarred 1:00 - Jarred's education and background.  1:45 - Jarred's studies of nanotechnology, specifically biochemistry  2:30 - Jarred's thesis on biosensor devices and how it relates to Startrek 3:55 - End of university job with Macromatix, completely unrelated to biochemistry 5:10 - The early opportunity to pick up distressed medical device assets 6:00 - Australia's strong position in the world and relatively painless COVID-19 experience make it a great place for global healthcare 8:10 - Australia's unfortunate lack of a biochemistry talent pool 9:30 - Australia's amazing history of medical device companies, including Cochlear and Resmed 10:30 - The opportunity to invest in the digital health space in Australia 11:40 - Deep dive into Resmed (RMD:ASX) and its successful pivot to health data revenue 14:40 - The benefits of living and doing bus

Sam Rich joins us to talk security, Crowdstrike, travel names, and how we're positioning the portfolio.

We discuss the current landscape and a couple of choice earnings reports.  0:20 – Introducing Joel Tomaino 1:10 – The structural shift to e-commerce 1:30 – Government stimulus and the diverse impacts of the current economic crisis 2:30 – How long will stimulus benefits and exacerbated e-commerce growth rates last 3:30 – Australian e-commerce plays, including Redbubble (ASX:RBL) 4:40 – E-commerce growth in mature markets compared to developing markets 5:00 – The opportunity for MercadoLibre (NASDAQ:MELI) in South America 6:20 – The opportunity for Sea (NYSE:SE) in South-East Asia 6:55 – Disney’s powerful platform and the success story of Disney Plus 8:25 – Is there pent up demand in travel? Will travel companies have their best years yet? 9:50 – Broader rotations in the market. Re-rates in growth stocks 10:45 – Frazis Capital’s auto plays (Carvana – NYSE:CVNA, Tesla – NASDAQ:TSLA) 12:45 – Changing attitudes to public transport because of COVID-19 13:40 – Where does the common cold come from? 14:10 – Marke

Chris Gosselin from Australian Fund Monitors (https://www.fundmonitors.com/landing.php) interviewed us about the fund and strategy.  0:00 - Introducing Michael Frazis 1:12 - Michael introduces Frazis Capital and describes its core investment requirements (Customer love, explosive growth and market leadership) 2:45 - The opportunity presented by high growth companies with ugly financial statements, professional scepticism and high short interest 4:00 - The best investment opportunities are often in front of your eyes the entire time 4:35 - Michael reiterates the importance of the fund's core investment requirements 6:10 - Unit economics often tell a very different and more valuable story than financial statements (using Xero and Tesla as examples) 7:35 - Frazis Capital's systematic framework 9:30 - Chris asks Michael, "When you don't get it right, how do you manage that?" 12:00 - Chris asks Michael, "Is there a stage at which these companies, which are growing very quickly, become mature?" 12:40 - Michael

Companies with brilliant products and broad customer support are faring significantly better than mature incumbents.  One of the fund's newest holdings satisfies our three core criteria: Exponential growth, products that customers truly love, genuine market leadership.

Gaming is one of the more exciting industries in technology right now. We discuss the opportunities and precedents for Twitch and streaming phenomenon.  Ben also takes us through leading chipmakers like NVDIA.  0:32 - Long term trends for Nvidia 2:16 - Demand for Nvidia GPU's in Data centres 3:03 - Use of Nvidia chips for Crypto mining 4:38 - Semiconductors are on the forefront for everything 5:46 - Nvidia compared to other chip makers, AMD and Intel 8:35 - Bitcoin mining economics 9:22 - Technology companies that 'miss the trend' 10:40 - Moore's Law and what it means for CPU's and GPU's 11:58 - What is the go-to for gamers now? 12:50 - Interesting stocks and opportunities for gaming - the shift to mobile gaming 15:35 - American vs Chinese Mobile games 16:10 - Sea's mobile game Freefire's recent success 18:40 - Ben's experience with mobile gaming  19:44 - Popularity of the MOBA category specifically League of Legends 21:05 - Online viewership of League of Legends worlds more than 44M concurre

Peter Stevens rejoins us to discuss some of our environmentally friendly investments. 0:30 - The continued dispersion between technology and the rest of the market 0:50 - The successes of Pinduoduo, Carvana and Afterpay 1:28 - Frazis Capital's successful diversification away from a highly concentrated portfolio 2:33 - Comparing today's hot tech businesses with the hot auto businesses of the past 3:00 - Michael introduces Plug Power (NASDAQ:PLUG), a hydrogen fuel cell manufacturer and one of the fund's most exciting holdings 5:00 - Introducing the Frazis Capital Youtube channel 5:50 - Michael introduces Chinese software firm, Kingsoft Corporation (HKG:3888) 7:00 - Peter and Michael discuss the various factors influencing the systematic underpricing of IPOs  10:10 - Cochlear's (ASX:COH) lucrative discounted capital raising  11:35 - The value that Frazis Capital can add to your portfolio 12:40 - Solaredge (NASDAQ:SEDG), an innovative Israeli solar provider and portfolio position 14:40 - ESG investing

Alexander began his career investing in technology for UK funds management giant Neptune, before joining London-based VC fund Redline Capital. It's rare indeed to speak to someone with experience across the public and private side of tech investing.  We had a fascinating chat covering robotic process automation, innovation investing, and life in venture capital vs public markets.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-portz-3a265236/ https://www.redline-capital.com/ 0:50 - Alex talks about his start in public markets 2:30 - Tech investing at Neptune Capital 3:50 - Alex discusses a high-performing company during his time at Neptune 6:20 - Michael and Alex discuss a stand-out semiconductor manufacturer 8:05 - The importance of investing in high quality companies 9:25 - Investing using an EV/Sales ratio and sales growth (Shopify as an example) 9:50 - The opportunity presented by Blue Prism 10:00 - Alex and Michael extensively discuss Blue Prism 15:05 - Alex outlines his firm's investment in Catalytic,

Eti Amegor of Axius Partners & www.suitsandkicks.com joins us to talk allocating and investing in the strange current environment. 0:52 - Opportunities during the coronavirus 1:55 - Current investor trends regarding liquidity 3:30 - The new private equity fund being launched by Eti's firm 6:30 - Why the coronavirus is the best environment for active investment managers 8:00 - Life Sciences stocks and the coronavirus 9:30 - Mike talks through Moderna, which focuses on drug discovery and  development based on messenger RNA 10:50 - Eti and Mike talk Afterpay (again) 14:00 - The endgame... Afterpay vs Paypal 16:55 - Why Frazis Capital does not buy Big Tech 17:10 - Mike introduces MercadoLibre, a new portfolio holding 18:30 - Mike introduces Sea, another new portfolio holding 20:00 - Shopify has performed superbly... is it still worth the valuation? 23:55 - Investment thematics within Frazis Capital Partners 25:20 - Mike discusses three digital health investment opportunities 28:30 - Frazis Capital's rece