September Tech Round-Up: AI Rewrites Offshoring

Dear reader,

AI is breaking offshoring’s old equation of more work, more people, more revenue. Clients of the large Indian and Philippine BPO companies are pushing for outcome-based pricing as AI tools lift productivity. The direction is clear: more measurable outcomes, fewer seats, and lower charges.

Meanwhile, here’s a really big deal for the BPO sector: the AI frontier labs are recruiting large private equity backers to build their own rivals to the outsourcing model. The disruptors are writing the cheques.

In this month’s Tech Round-Up, we examine what is changing, what may come next, and what it means for your business. Enjoy, from the team at North Ridge Partners.

Original Thinking From North Ridge Partners

Read our three-part essay series on the shifting sands of offshoring:

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This month’s Tech Round-Up AI podcast hosts Peter Productivity and Annie Arbitrage explore what happens when AI and private equity stop accepting outsourcing’s old economics - and start rewriting them.

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Techtonic Shifts

Asia Pacific Tech News

Software & AI

Hits and Misses: Q2 rewards AI chip sellers, with compute buyers and acquirers footing the bill. Nvidia: revenue $96.2bn, +106%; operating profit $63.7bn, +124%. CoreWeave: revenue $2.6bn, +112%; operating loss $49m versus $19m profit, as infrastructure costs doubled. Salesforce: revenue $11.3bn, +11%; operating profit $2.3bn, flat, impacted by AA and restructuring. Workday: revenue $2.6bn, +13%; operating profit $313m, +26%. Palo Alto Networks Q4: revenue $3.4bn, +34%; operating profit $172m, -65%, impacted by AA.

  • Claude Nine: Anthropic pitches a TAM >$30.0tn, roughly US GDP and above SpaceX's $28.5tn TAM, ahead of a $2tn-plus listing this year, potentially the largest IPO ever. Run-rate: $65.0bn v OpenAI's reported $40.0bn.

  • Free hugs, at $12.9bn: Nvidia agrees to acquire Hugging Face, the "GitHub of AI". The deal buys access to more than 18 million developers and 200,000 companies, while Huang pledges the platform stays open to the entire AI ecosystem.

  • Thinking big, pricing lower: Murati's Thinking Machines is in talks to raise $1.0bn+ at >$40.0bn valuation, with Accel leading and Nvidia weighing in. That's 4x its 2025 seed but below the $50.0bn sought last year.

Aerospace & Defence Tech

Hits and Misses: The Q2 scoreboard reads like a rearmament index. Rheinmetall: revenue €3.3bn, +69%; operating result €562m, +115%; backlog €80.5bn. Kratos: revenue US$459m, +31%; adjusted EBITDA $38m, +35%; backlog $2.1bn. Elbit Systems: revenue $2.3bn, +16%; non-GAAP operating profit $238m, +36%; backlog $32.0bn.

  • The factory is the product. Hadrian raised a US$1.4bn Series D at a $7.9bn valuation, anchored by JPMorganChase's Strategic Investment Group alongside Baillie Gifford, Valor, and WCM. Builds automated factories making submarine and aircraft parts.  

  • Now the third most valuable defence startup on earth. Castelion's $1.0bn Series C, $800m in equity plus a $250m credit facility, values the four-year-old company at $13.0bn, behind only Anduril and Helsing and past Shield AI.

  • Attritable mass becomes industrial policy. The White House's Drone Dominance Program ties a roughly $1.1bn purchase of more than 200,000 American-made small drones by 2027 to onshoring airframes, motors, batteries, and sensors beneath them.

Fintech

Hits and Misses: Profit, not promise - June Q2 results mark Fintech's coming of age. Nubank: revenue $5.9bn, +39%; net income $1.1bn, +49%. Affirm: revenue $1.2bn, +33%; adjusted operating profit $353m, +49%. SoFi: revenue $1.2bn, +40%; adjusted EBITDA $358m, +44%. Monee (Sea Group's Fintech segment): revenue $1.4bn, +59%; adjusted EBITDA $288m, +13%. Rakuten: revenue ¥665.5bn, +12%; EBITDA ¥115.3bn, +12%; net income ¥7.7bn, first quarterly profit in six years - Fintech segment revenue ¥295.4bn, +27%; non-GAAP profit ¥69.2bn, +60%.

  • The intelligence layer has a new owner. Stripe acquires OpenRouter, an AI model gateway spanning 400+ models across 80 providers, for a reported ~US$7.5bn, a 5.8x step-up from its $1.3bn valuation just three months prior.

  • Old money, new tricks. Vanguard to acquire Altruist, an AI-forward wealth technology and custody platform for IFAs, for ~$4.0bn. In 46 years, Vanguard made no acquisitions. In five years, it has made two, both in Fintech.

  • Japan backs Indonesia's biggest tech round. SBI invests $270m for 20% of Jakarta-based Ajaib, marking the largest Indo tech funding round since 2022. A strategic foothold in one of Indonesia's largest investment platforms.

Travel Tech

Hits and Misses: Resilience is the name of the game. SiteMinder: FY26 revenue A$266m, +19%; adjusted EBITDA $28m, +97%. RateGain: Q1 revenue INR7.9bn, +188%; adjusted EBITDA INR1.9bn, +289%, boosted by Sojern. Sabre: Q2 revenue US$712m, +4%; adjusted EBITDA $143m, +21%, with FY guidance raised. eDreams ODIGEO: Q1 revenue €166m, -4%; adjusted EBITDA €29m, -41%, reflecting planned investment programme. WebBeds H1 27 guidance: underlying EBITDA A$85-89m, upgraded from $80-86m; revenue growth upgraded to +14-16%.

Stuff We Found Interesting

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© North Ridge Partners 2026

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