February Tech Round-Up: Airport Tech Takes Off (as SaaS and Crypto Hit Turbulence)
Animation by Grok
Dear reader,
In these turbulent tech times, we’re taking you on a different trip. Airport technology offers rich pickings in a sector ripe for automation. It’s in the early phases of a 40-year renewal cycle, and offers both growth and infrastructure-like characteristics. What’s not to like?
Enjoy, from the team at North Ridge Partners.
Original Thinking From North Ridge Partners
Airports can lift earnings and defer their capex by modernising the unglamorous tech that runs terminals - not through moonshots, but by scaling proven digital tools that cut queues and streamline passenger flows while reducing energy waste and breakdowns. The use cases are many and varied - and the constraint is no longer technology or passenger willingness, but whether operators can overcome inertia and turn pilots into systems that work across the whole estate. Click here to read Airport Tech Cleared for Takeoff.
As airports hit physical limits, startups like Elenium, Neoke and OneReg are betting the next capacity upgrade won’t come from bigger terminals, but from software. Click here to read Code Beats Concrete.
But before we go any further, let’s address the elephant in the room: what the heck’s going on with software and AI, and crypto?
A Tale of Two Meltdowns
If markets were movies, this month we’d be watching Softpocalypse Now and The Big Short (Crypto Edition). This is one of those moments in time - SaaS is being smashed by fears of AI, and the Crypto Winter is back (Xanax, anyone?)
Reuters sets the scene in The Software Rout, Replayed. And here’s a shortlist of the sharper takes: Noah Smith in Fall of the Nerds, Stratechery in Microsoft and Software Survival, Hg Capital in Everything, Everywhere, But Not All at Once and Tomasz Tunguz. in How Markets Price AI Risk. Prefer to listen? This week’s All-In Podcast is worth a spin - jump in around minute 15 for Brad Gerstner’s typically clear breakdown.
Don’t despair! As our own Head of Software & AI, Gerry Gimenez, wrote in November last year, SaaS isn’t dead, it’s just getting a brain - it’s not the end, it’s evolution.
Not to be outdone, Crypto is having its own moment, with Bitcoin and meme coins like TRUMP falling ~50% and 95% from peak to trough. UBS have a blunt message: Crypto is not an asset. Fed nominee Kevin Warsh is more sanguine.
Meanwhile, gold and silver are soaring. It’s pretty hard to label crypto as a store of value right now. Here’s an oldie but a goodie from the Brookings Institute, re-released in January 2026.
Short of Time? Listen to the Podcast
This month Trip Booker and Delta Check-in, our Travel Tech AI podcasters, discuss how airports are swapping concrete for code to unlock billions in value through applications like digital identity, automated bag drops, and AI-driven efficiency.
Click here or on the banner below to listen. Enjoy.
Big Tech
Earnings and AI spending soar: Big Tech’s AI spending is unprecedented, giving Wall Street a hangover. The Zuck spends billions while facing legal and regulatory scrutiny, yet Meta still delivers for Wall Street; Google’s Q4 shows that its fast pivot into generative search is working; Amazon gets whacked for huge AI spend after an earnings miss despite US$213bn in annual sales; Apple jumps on an iPhone sales surge; and Microsoft posts strong results, even as cloud softens.
Huang in there: ‘OpenAI is probably the largest investment we have ever made’.
Elon rearranges the deck chairs: SpaceX - xAI merger creates the world’s most valuable private company, driving a change in Musk’s wealth and risk profiles.
Self-driving hits the accelerator: Waymo completes a US$16bn capital raise while True Believer ARK Invest reveals Tesla’s Robotaxi Roadmap.
New owners, same chaos: TikTok’s first day in US hands sparks a privacy row and a 150% surge in app deletions.
Asia Pacific Tech News
Rock’n roll in Hong Kong as its IPO market achieves the second-strongest January ever. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia startup funding hits $5.4bn in 2025 as M&A deal value drops by 16%.
The Red Dot goes all-in: Singapore invests close to $800m in AI research and launches a National Space Agency - all while going cashless.
GCash cashes in with a $30m ADB facility.
Hole in one: Aussie VC legend Square Peg raises $650m.
Stuck in traffic: Grab-GoTo merger.
Stuff We Found Interesting
The Superbowl tech ads have run! The Information awarded first prize to Amazon Alexa, the Runner-Up prize to Anthropic and the wooden spoon to Gemini for its shocker. We agree!
Demand is back but capacity isn’t: ‘Americans are living in a fantasy; they have no idea what we’re facing’.
Mind over mouse - Neuralink wants to let paralysed patients control machines directly by thought.
The bots are now talking to other bots. What could possibly go wrong?
Job security and tech are no longer synonyms.
Tech Investment Banking Across Asia Pacific
North Ridge Partners advises tech companies across the Asia Pacific on strategy, capital raising and M&A. We’re experienced dealmakers who have built and sold many tech companies. In partnership with GP Bullhound, we have 200 bankers in 17 global offices.
Contact us here.
© North Ridge Partners 2026
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