Speedwell Research's News Update and Weekly Recap
New EVO Update, Why Precision Medicine is Like Dating Apps, The Netflix Piton, ABNB Declaring War on Clones
Welcome to Speedwell Research’s Newsletter. We write about business and investing. Our paid research product can be found at SpeedwellResearch.com. You can learn more about us here.
This is a weekly recap, where we summarize recent content you may have missed.
Table of Contents:
Speedwell Releases & Upcoming
Spotlight
Coverage Updates
Sharing Links
1. Speedwell Releases & Upcoming.
Research.
We released a business update on Evolution. You can read it here: EVO 2Q25 Business Update
The Synopsis Podcast.
No episode this week, but check out our latest interview with Mark Dainty, who is a precision medicine portfolio manager at Blue Box Asset Management. In this episode, Mark shares how to invest in the high-risk industry of precision medicine using the “developer vs enabler” strategy. Listen or read below!
Upcoming.
Podcast
We will release a dialogue episode on Evolution this week.
Be sure to follow the podcast to be the first to know when a new episode drops!
Research
We are working on LVMH as our next in-depth research report.
Coverage
CoStar will report 2Q25 earnings on Tuesday. Read our latest update on CoStar here → CSGP 1Q25 Business Update
Become a Speedwell Member today to get access to all of our research updates and our in-depth research reports!
2. Spotlight.
Below are select quotes from our various writings and podcast.
EVO 2Q25 Business Recap.
The American Tailwind: “North America was a bright spot with revenues reaccelerating to +23% y/y. Martin emphasized that the live casino market in North America is still very nascent, as gamblers are only really used to land-based casinos and online RNG. This should be a tailwind for them for many years to come.”
Returning Capital: “In terms of capital allocation, they have been returning more than their earnings to shareholders recently (because they have a ~€0.5bn cash balance). YTD they have bought back about ~1.5% of the company.”
The Ring-Fenced Headwind: “The self-inflicted pain by ring-fencing European activity resulted in the second consecutive quarter of negative growth. Europe was -6% y/y. This can be expected to be a headwind for three more quarters until they lap their initial ring-fencing efforts.”
Read the full update here: EVO 2Q25 Business Recap
The Synopsis Podcast. The Mark Dainty Interview
Why Precision Medicine is like Dating Apps: “The probability of success of the drugs I realize it's very similar to actually dating apps where part of the problem with dating apps is that people don't know kind of the rate of success ahead of time. And so they have very hard time actually monetizing it. Whereas if you knew ahead of time if something would work, you'd be willing to pay a very high price for it. And when you're looking at these traditional drug manufacturers, there's a large percentage that the drugs don't work. And so the price they can demand isn't quite as high.”
Memo: Meta-Optimizations.
The Netflix Piton: “While anyone could have copied what Netflix was attempting with video streaming, the existing studios couldn’t. This is because their ample content library and production capabilities were a Piton: they were necessary for their core business of making and selling content, but limited them in respect to becoming a distribution pipe without a studio affiliation.”
Read the full memo here: Meta-Optimizations: Knowing When a Business is Operating from Strength or Weakness
Company Report Snippet: Airbnb.
Declaring War on Clones: “Chesky decided that the most fitting “revenge” for Wimdu would be to force them to run the company they were hoping to quickly flip. Instead, Brian “declared war” and personally became the Head of International. They bought a smaller company, Accoleo (without the “mercenary” culture) to build a foothold in Europe, and within three months, had opened ten more offices internationally with country managers he hand-picked. At the same time, the pressure helped them build an international “playbook” that they instituted on a country-by-country basis.”
*This is an excerpt from our company report on Airbnb.
If you are a Speedwell Research Member, read the full report here: Airbnb
If you are not already a Speedwell Research member, you can purchase it here: Airbnb Individual Report
3. Coverage Updates & News.
Meta
Connor Hayes appointed to lead Threads app
Connor Hayes, a longtime executive of Meta since 2011, will take over Adam Mosseri's (Head of Instagram) role on Threads.
“Given Threads' maturity, we think we need a dedicated app lead who can focus all of their time on helping Threads move forward,” -Adam Mosseri.
Threads now have 380M users.
Mark Zuckerberg plans on investing hundreds of billions of dollars in superclusters
"We're also going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into compute to build superintelligence. We have the capital from our business to do this." - Mark Zuckerberg
“We're actually building several multi-GW clusters. We're calling the first one Prometheus, and it's coming online in '26. We're also building Hyperion, which will be able to scale up to 5GW over several years. We're building multiple more titan clusters as well. Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan.” -Mark Zuckerberg
CoStar
Home price inflation remained muted in June.
Nationally, the median home price was up just 1.3% from a year ago to $395,000
Economic and Financial News
Corporate narratives touting resilient consumers clash with data showing growing debt, rising delinquencies, and financial fragility. 26% of Americans now spend more than they earn.
June CPI rose 2.7% y/y, tempering equity and bond markets as consumers begin to feel inflation’s impact.
President Trump signed an executive order allowing 401(k) plans to include crypto, gold, and private equity under the Genius and Clarity Act.
4. Sharing Links.
Check out Speedwell Research’s Drew Cohen’s YouTube Channel. It is focused on general investing and business content.
Other Links.
A Letter a Day: Brevan Howard Founder and Robey Warshaw Partner | The Keys to Managing Money & Risk (link)
Aswath Damodaran on To Bitcoin or Not to Bitcoin: The Corporate Cash Question (link)
Leandro (Best Anchor Stocks): The Advantage of the Individual Investor (link)
And a special thank you to Matthew Harbaugh for helping put this weekly recap together!
The Synopsis Podcast.
Follow our Podcast below. We have four episode formats: “company” episodes that breakdown in-depth each business we write a report on, “dialogue” episodes that cover various business and investing topics, “article” episodes where we read our weekly memos, and “interviews”.
Speedwell Research Reports.
Become a Speedwell Research Member to receive all of our in-depth research reports, shorter exploratory reports, updates, and Members Plus also receive Excels.
(Many members have gotten their memberships expensed. If you need us to talk with your compliance department to become an approved vendor, please reach out at info@speedwellresearch.com).
